The Deadly Light
by anactoria
Summary: Lovecraft-inspired 1920s supernatural horror AU. Adrian/Dan, plus various other pairings. Slash, het, mild horror.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **The Deadly Light

**Author: **Anactoria

**Fandom: **Watchmen

**Characters/Pairing:** Various, mainly Adrian/Dan.

**Rating: **PG for this part, probably R-ish overall.

**Summary:** Lovecraft-inspired 1920s supernatural horror AU.

**Notes:** This story may contain: Eldritch Horrors, non-Euclidean love triangles, references to real historical events, wholesale abuse of that nebulous collection of names and ideas sometimes referred to as the Cthulhu Mythos, and quite possibly some smut. No Eldritch Horrors in the smut, though, I promise.

Thanks to flyingrat42 for all her beta help. :) Any remaining mistakes are, of course, my own.

* * *

_Giza, 1922_

The interior is dark. A brazier stands on the central table in the old man's tent, something in it burning with a pale, unhealthy flame. It emits no heat - a mercy, since it's mid-afternoon and stifling - and only a feeble, flickering glow. The small space is thick with smoke, heavy with the absence of light.

A surface gleams in the shadows, some fascinating construct in metal and glass momentarily illuminated, and for all the pride he takes in his self-control, Adrian can't stop himself from peering at it. Then the old man steps into his field of vision, his heavy mess of robes dragging behind him, a ragged curtain drawn across the view.

Adrian masks his disappointment with a pleasant smile, and turns his attention to the center of the room, studying the brazier as he waits for the old man to speak. This, too, is an unusual piece of workmanship, adorned with a sinuous tangle of wrought metal that is not iron or copper or brass, or anything else that he can immediately identify. After a moment's contemplation, Adrian finds himself frowning. There seems to be something _wrong_ with the geometry of the thing. Its strands draw the eye along curves that twist at vicious and unnerving angles, that seem to end where they ought to continue, and to begin where they... shouldn't.

He blinks, inclines his head in question, and the wrinkled mass that is the old man's face forms itself into something like a smile. A slow, creeping smile, the kind of smile that rocks or bark might smile, were they capable of expressing sentiment.

Now, that is a ridiculous notion, and the realization seems enough to break the spell. He pushes the thought from his mind, chiding himself for allowing his head to be turned by the mystical affectations of the place. It's clearly designed to impress rich Western visitors into parting with their cash; he should know better than to be taken in.

He _does_ know better. The air is thick with incense. The smoke must be getting in his eyes.

Still, the old man's repulsiveness is impressive. There is no immediately apparent reason for the shiver of disgust Adrian feels as the old man leans closer, or the fact that it costs him an effort of will not to flinch, but it's there. Just below the level of consciousness, an instinctive revulsion from the flat, reptilian glint of the old man's eyes, the papery hands, the way his deeply-lined face is mostly shadowed by a fraying hood.

_He's seven years old, plucking a garden spider off the lawn to study the sharp, alien angles of its limbs, puzzled by his mother's grimace and the way she shrinks back as he holds it up. _

_(It's missing a leg. Later, he'll try fixing on various substitutes - a blade of grass, a whisker from the family cat - and feel a faint indignation when the spider finally just stops moving.)_

_"They don't look as though they should be _alive_," his mother shudders, and he nods, politely, without interest. Sometimes he can't tell whether adults really are as stupid as they sound, or whether they're just pretending not to know that the most frightening thing in the world is people._

Looking at the old man, however, Adrian thinks that at last he understands what she was talking about. There is something inhuman about him. Somehow, Adrian is sure that he's as much a stranger here in the shadow of the Pyramids as he would be in New York.

From somewhere in the darkness or the voluminous folds of his garment, the old man produces a tray of amulets. Stone and polished metal, gleaming dully in the half-light - but Adrian can tell that they're only crudely carved. Modern reproductions; the same kind that he's seen being hawked by innumerable roadside sellers up in the Valley of the Kings, where Tutankhamun-mad tourists are easy prey. Adrian sighs, not even managing to care that it's audible. He's been on edge since he arrived here: an unfamiliar feeling, and an irritating one, particularly if he isn't even going to learn anything new. His patience is quickly wearing thin.

The old man's hands dart bird-quick among the trinkets, and he plucks first one, then another, from the tray. He's muttering, low and near-incomprehensible (certainly part of the act; his English was fluent enough when he was persuading Adrian into his little setup). "Powerful objects," he says. "The ancients called it _heka_-"

"I have no need for a layman's introduction to the local mythology, thank you. And if I were here for trinkets, I'd visit the market. My guide told me you were knowledgeable. He was clearly mistaken."

Adrian makes to stand up, and the withered hand that grips his arm is stronger than it has any right to be. He starts, then flushes and glares at the old man, finding that he has no choice but to remain seated.

Amusement seeps out through the mass of wrinkles. "Perhaps I have judged you unfairly, hmm?" The old man chuckles, sharp-eyed. "The Americans - most of you are only interested in a few stories, a few souvenirs. Some local color to add to your dinner-party stories. The Europeans are even worse. But you - you are different, perhaps."

It's all manipulation, of course. A layer of flattery; another tactic for another type of tourist. But even as he sighs inwardly, Adrian decides he has nothing to lose by playing along. He has already wasted his afternoon; he may as well pretend to be taken in. He half-smiles, ducks his head, makes a show of looking modestly down at his folded hands.

"Perhaps," he says. "I'd like to think so, anyway."

"Of course." The old man turns away, and when he faces Adrian again he is holding something.

It's a soapstone puzzle-box, or something similar, its glaze long since worn off, its edges smooth with age. The crude glyphs that mark its surface are as good as illegible. But the old man caresses the box's underside, twists and presses (Adrian, out of habit, watching him narrowly, following each movement and tucking it away in his mental store), and first one compartment, then another, slides open. Gold and polished stone gleam within them, but these aren't reproductions. Adrian has only visited two excavation sites, so far, but he's picked up enough to identify these pieces as genuine right away. A finely-worked scarab-beetle, an amulet inscribed with a plea for protection from Khepri. They must be thousands of years old.

This is certainly more than he's been expecting. He's meant to be impressed and, for once, he has to admit that he is.

But the old man isn't showing him everything: the shape of the box means that there has to be another compartment, probably right in the center. Well, now that the old man has succeeded in capturing his interest, he isn't going to leave without finding out what's inside it.

"Fascinating," he murmurs. "May I?"

With a shrewd look, and a caution against rough handling that sounds too practiced to stem from serious concern, the old man places the box in Adrian's outstretched hand. It's cool to the touch, making his palm tingle - and, sure enough, it's too heavy to be empty. There has to be something else in there. He runs his fingers over the sides of the box, as though he might be able to read the near-obliterated carvings by touch, feels the underside for clues.

There, in the center. There's a tiny protrusion. Adrian copies the old man's pressing-motion, widening his eyes as the ancient mechanism pops the box open right along the middle.

"Oh," he says, with a smile of feigned embarrassment. "I'm _so_ sorry. I suppose I must have-"

That's when the figure falls out. It clatters onto the table, spins, skitters to a halt right in front of him. The light from the brazier slides across its surfaces like oil.

Both the brazier and the figure, Adrian realizes, are fashioned from the same unfamiliar metal; both play tricks on the eye, are subtly unsettling to look at.

The figure is a strange compound. It contains elements that might be human - but there is something in the workmanship that suggests otherwise, something unplaceable that makes Adrian pause for an uncertain moment before touching. There are animal features to it, too, and others that seem to come from some entirely different order of evolution, to belong to some deep-sea monster or extraterrestrial fantasy.

Taken as a whole, it's hideous. For a moment, Adrian wonders whether he would even want it in his collection, undoubtedly immense historical importance or not.

But only for a moment. His instinctive revulsion subsides as he catches sight of the inscription on the figure's base. The alphabet, he's sure, is the same as that on the outside of the puzzle-box. And he recognizes it, now. It isn't the writing of any language Adrian has ever heard spoken - and he has studied plenty. But he has _seen_ it before.

Only a few letters, in the illustrative plates of a centuries-old book, and apparently archaic even at the time of writing. He pored over them a number of times, in the Curwen Library at Miskatonic, back before the place burned to the ground. He'd never expected to see it again; he hasn't come across a copy since, if any even remain in existence. At the time, he'd been immensely disappointed. He'd just begun to feel as though he was making some progress.

"So, you _are_ different."

Adrian blinks. He's sure he hasn't been thinking out loud, and he has to force down his growing unease.

Perhaps he has spoken without thinking. Perhaps the heat is getting to him.

The old man looks gleeful. "Abdul Alhazred is not for tourists," he says. "You know more than you admit, I think." He leans over the table, tipping something onto the brazier (though who knows why it needs to be topped up - it's of little use as a light, and in any case, they've been in the dark long enough for their eyes to have adjusted) and waving a hand dismissively when Adrian tries to give back the carving. "Hold on to it. It's yours, if you wish."

"And if I can meet your price, of course," Adrian begins, raising an eyebrow. And then-

The flame gutters, and the light in the place begins to fail. In the flickering shadows, Adrian's eyes play tricks on him.

The old man's features appear to rearrange themselves, to take on a crawling aspect, to give the impression of endless movement, instability- chaos-

Later (from the relative safety of a train bound for Cairo) Adrian will recall the sensation as something akin to being ripped open - as though someone has taken hold of the outer layers of his mind and pulled hard until it tears right down the center, leaving what's inside naked and exposed to the elements, to the howling of the universe and the thousands upon thousands of voices all screaming to make themselves heard. Right now, though, it just _hurts_, more than anything he's ever felt in his life, and when that fades away the light has changed and he knows he's not in Egypt any more._We wait, and no-one will save us. _

_The shadows gather, and the continents grow ripe with blood, and the horizon flickers with a light neither natural nor earthly, and we wait, and no-one will save us. _

_And in the end mankind will be as they once were, casting off conscience and compassion and learning to find beauty in killing, and we will wait, and no-one will save us._

_And after the final chaos, when the last human being scratches his last word in the sand of the last desert, he will stop, and he will look again at what he has written. And he will obliterate it; will scratch it out - no matter that human eyes would never see it. Better that it not remain. The history of the human race, now, can be only one of shame. _

_Because we waited, and no-one came to save us._

Adrian comes to his senses shuddering, not quite able to control his start at the old man's dried-leaf hand on his shoulder. The old man just blinks, all innocent surprise, no longer a figure composed of madly crawling forms - just a singularly ugly person.

"What _was_ that?" Adrian asks, shaking his head. His voice sounds thick and unclear. He swallows.

A shrug. "We all see different things. Our dreams, our nightmares. The past, the future."

"The future?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps it is up to you, Mr. Veidt."

He certainly hasn't mentioned his name. How- ?

He shakes himself. He's losing his senses. The guide. The guide must have told him.

The old man frowns. "But you look unwell. Would you like some water?"

"No. Thank you. I - no."

Adrian stands to leave, as carefully as he can in his haste, and the dusty air of the side-street feels like sweet relief. It's hours later, in the cool shade of his first-class carriage on the train, that he realizes the figure is still in his hand.

On returning to New York, Adrian places the carved figure on the top left-hand shelf in his study, where it catches the light and gleams too brightly for its age when the sun comes in. He spends a few days in the library, attempting to find out what it represents, but finds nothing, resources in the field being sadly depleted after the Miskatonic fire.

It can be no more than a minor idol, he decides eventually, perhaps not even a deity. It's probably valuable enough, and certainly a fascinating curio, but he never shows it to a dealer, and he somehow doubts that any of his acquaintances would care to see it.

Two years after Adrian returns to New York and places the figurine on his bookshelf, a man is released from prison in Bavaria.

Nobody in his right mind would connect the two occurrences. But when Adrian's newspaper has stopped trembling in his grip, he glances up into the top left corner of his study.


	2. Chapter 2

_New York, 1925_

Dan stands restless in his own front room. He lifts up his sweating glass, places it back on the table without taking a sip. He's frowning, reading over parts of the letter he holds in his other hand (written in sharp cursive, on thick, creamy paper, with impeccable politeness and a few oblique hints at knowing far more than it says outright.) He isn't nervous, exactly, but... well.

Lately, he hasn't been getting out much, and with Kovacs out of town, Veidt will be the first visitor he's had in at least a week. Dan isn't much of a social animal at the best of times, and it's been worse since the engagement.

The most galling part of it all is, he doesn't even have any _right_ to feel this way. It's not as though he was ever likely to pluck up the courage to tell Laurel how he felt. And while Osterman might be unnerving, with that unchanging, detached expression, and his habit of telling people, with eerie accuracy, what they're about to say a second before they get around to saying it, he's never been less than polite to Dan. He can hardly be blamed for his condition. The best doctors in the country haven't managed to work it out, so it certainly wouldn't be fair for Dan to hold it against him - even if a small, selfish part of him would very much like to.

He hasn't had the opportunity to talk to anybody about the whole situation, but then, that's probably for the best. Somehow, he doesn't think that Kovacs would understand. The idea of being openly pathetic in front of Sergeant Mason makes his skin crawl with embarrassment. About the only other person he could call a close friend is Laurel herself, and he'd rather not try to imagine how that conversation might go. It's been easier just keeping to himself.

Adrian Veidt's note, though, has gotten him interested. It's cryptic, giving away just enough to be intriguing - and it was entirely unexpected, considering that they've never actually known each other very well.

Back in Dan's university days, they exchanged the occasional polite greeting, but the moneyed aesthetes in whose company Veidt was usually seen (when he was seen in company at all) certainly wouldn't have been Dan's first choice of companions, and so they never really got past the polite greetings. They couldn't, by any stretch of the imagination, have been called friends. Dan can still remember poking through one of the less-frequented corners of the library, stumbling across Veidt engrossed in some vast, dusty old tome in an unfamiliar language, and getting such an affronted look that he felt as though he'd just walked into a private residence by mistake.

That had been shortly before the library burned down. Veidt vanished from campus, and from New York society, too, pretty soon afterwards - apparently to somewhere in the Middle East. There was a brief flurry of rumor and speculation at the time, but Dan's never been particularly interested in keeping up with society gossip, and he can hardly remember any of what was said. Truthfully, he hadn't even thought about the guy in years.

So when the bell rings and he opens the door to find Veidt proffering his hand with an easy, "Daniel. It's good to see you again," Dan finds himself caught off guard, blinking stupidly at the unexpected familiarity.

"Ah," he manages, after a second. "Ah, yeah. You too. It's been a long time."

"Too long," Veidt agrees, with a smile. It's a crisp, sunny smile, bright as an electric bulb, bright enough that you almost don't notice that it fails to reach his eyes.

Dan blinks back at the smile. "I should probably invite you in," he says, to distract it. "Can I get you a drink?"

"Just coffee, thank you," Veidt replies, casting an appraising gaze around the apartment as he walks in. The scrutiny to which Dan feels himself subjected is cool and measuring, and it makes him want to look childishly at the floor and scuff the soles of his shoes.

He feels his face go hot when that gaze lands on the tumbler of whisky and soda sitting on the table beside his chair. It isn't a regular indulgence. (But he isn't accustomed to talking about his work with anyone, let alone a near-stranger, and he needed to fortify himself for the task _somehow_.) And he really ought to be used to disapproval by now, given the frequency of his conversations with Kovacs. Somehow, he still feels ten years old, caught with his fingers in the candy jar.

But when Veidt glances back in his direction, his expression has softened, and he actually chuckles.

"Please, don't think that I'm passing judgement," he says. "To be frank, I'm of the opinion that the current system of regulation is ridiculous. I try not to over-indulge, personally; that's all." The corners of his eyes crinkle up. "But you didn't invite me here to listen to my opinions on the federal regulation of alcohol."

Actually, as far as Dan can remember, it wasn't him who did the inviting. But instead of pointing that out, he laughs and shrugs and occupies himself with lighting up the small stove in the corner of the room, suddenly very glad of the distraction. Thank goodness he keeps his own coffee-making facilities. "Of course not. Though- honestly, I'm still not entirely sure why you _did_ contact me."

"Of course." A twitch of amusement as Veidt arranges himself in the spare armchair without invitation, and Dan mentally kicks himself for his own thoughtlessness. "I'm sorry I couldn't be clearer when I wrote to you. But these kinds of subjects do tend to make people nervous. I've found that it's always wisest to test the water first."

"Oh, sure. I can understand that."

"I did mention, of course, that I was fascinated by your articles in _Chrysopoeia_."

Dan looks down at his hands. "Well, you know. It's just a niche publication. There aren't many people who take it seriously."

"With good reason, judging by much of the content. However." Veidt gleams at him. "I may be no scientist, but it's obvious even to a layman that your work is far more intellectually rigorous than the usual fare. And as for the subject matter... well, let's just say that it could be very important."

An involuntary, disbelieving chuckle breaks out of Dan. "You think? Most people seem pretty well convinced that I'm insane. It isn't exactly regular science."

"And if human beings always stuck with what was regular, we would still be living in caves and lighting fires with flint." Veidt's expression turns earnest, his voice gentle. "People are afraid of what they can't comprehend, Daniel. You shouldn't allow ignorance to interfere with something you know to be worthwhile."

"But I don't know that it is. I've had a few successful experiments at home, but- well, I haven't managed to convince anybody that I'm not wasting my time yet. It probably looks crazy, chasing after some idea that a few half-mad European sorcerers wrote down in the Middle Ages. I'm not even sure if _I_ really understand what I'm doing. It's half science, half..."

"Magic?" Veidt tips his head to one side, lips quirking. "I understand. One can feel a little embarrassed using such terms. But isn't magic, after all, just what humans have always called powers we don't understand?"

Dan blinks in surprise, and Veidt makes an expansive gesture, apparently happy to expound on his hint without further prompting.

"As I'm sure you're aware, the idea of unknown forms of energy, by-products of a kind of... rupture in reality, if you will, existed long before Olaus Wormius set it down. What surprised me was quite how far back it goes." Veidt's expression has turned dreamy, and his voice takes on a rhythmic, storytelling quality as he warms to his subject. It's startlingly easy for Dan to get sucked in by that voice, to surrender to it and let himself be pulled along. "All the way back, in fact, to the _Necronomicon_ of Abdul Alhazred. That's its first appearance in writing, though there are earlier inscriptions on record that hint at the existence of these energies, at the unfathomably vast events of which they are merely the residue. And at the ways in which they might be used. A few exceptional men, throughout history, have been fascinated by the idea. Most simply disregarded it as fantasy - as _magic_ - out of scepticism, or out of fear. But you're making an attempt to understand it. That puts you at least part of the way there."

"That's just it," Dan cuts in, trance broken. "I'm sure there's a way of harnessing these energies, and I think I might know how to do it." He pulls a pencil stub out of his pocket, casts around for something to write on, and lights upon yesterday's _Evening Post_, folded on the arm of his chair. "I've been using this-equation, you'd probably call it, though in the original it's presented as an incantation of some sort. A spell, I guess." And the word still sounds ridiculous spoken aloud, a word from childish games and fairy-stories, but he doesn't feel half as embarrassed saying it in front of Veidt as he'd expected to. "It seems to work about half the time, anyway." He finishes writing and smoothes out the paper, offering it for inspection.

Then there's a whistling noise from the kettle, followed by the hiss of water boiling over, and he jumps to his feet again, muttering, "Damn, damn, damn."

"Mmm." Veidt regards the paper thoughtfully, apparently unconcerned by the minor domestic accident occurring in the corner of the room. "Wormius talks about 'dark' and 'light' forms of the energy, of course. It's my theory that one of those forms is given off by an opening in the fabric of reality, and the other by one of those openings being closed. You'd have to harness them differently, I suppose. Perhaps if you reversed this symbol..."

When Dan turns around, with a cup of coffee in one hand and a shirtsleeve dripping hot water, Veidt is writing, making a few deft alterations in his sharply sloping hand, and turning the newspaper around for Dan's perusal. His expression is opaque, betraying no trace of excitement. He could be filling out a crossword puzzle.

Dan passes him the cup and picks up the paper, holding it close to his face. "That... actually makes a lot of sense," he admits, after a few seconds' scrutiny.

And it does. It's an imaginative leap, and not one he'd ever have thought of making himself, but it might just work.

It might _work_. His fingers itch, already eager to be back at his workbench, finding the right parts and constructing a shape through which to channel it. He grins. "I don't suppose there's any chance of your giving up antiquarianism for a career as my brilliant assistant?"

Veidt actually laughs at that. "I can't see it, somehow. But I _am_ fascinated by the work you've been doing." A moment's pause. "Perhaps, if it isn't too great an intrusion, you'd indulge my curiosity?"

"I don't usually show people what I'm working on," Dan says doubtfully, his grin fading, but there's a little curl of excitement in his stomach, tentative and new.

The only person who comes up to his rooms regularly is Kovacs, and while he does look genuinely impressed by some of the gadgets Dan's constructed, he isn't really interested in the mechanics of it all, or the theories behind it. (And when Dan talks about any of it for too long, he snorts, and his hands grip each other until the knuckles turn white, and he mutters that it's all speculation anyway, and surely there must be other avenues of research that would actually be of some use to society. At times like that, Dan can't help thinking that Kovacs sounds exactly like his father.)

The idea of showing his work to someone who understands it is, on the one hand, discomfiting, like he's being invited to submit the inner workings of his brain for inspection. But Veidt would hardly have gone to the trouble of writing to him if he wasn't genuinely interested, and he talked about the articles as though they actually deserved to be taken seriously, not dismissed as the credulous fantasies of an upper-class dilettante. And besides, he has this wide-eyed, expectant look on his face that makes saying 'no' seem unthinkably rude.

Dan looks down, swallows his uncertainty, raises his eyes. He smiles. "Sure," he says. "Why not?"

* * *

The large room that serves as Dan's workshop has two states of being: the semi-organized chaos he works in when an idea hits him and he has to make something out of it, now, or it will escape him forever and he'll never remember it again, and the compulsive neatness that serves him pretty well the rest of the time, tools and pieces laid out carefully parallel to one another, plans and notes organized according to his own obscure mental filing system. Today, thankfully, it's the latter.

Walking in here with another person still makes him want to flinch a little, and he finds himself talking faster, and at a fractionally higher pitch than normal, as he shows Veidt around.

"You, uh, probably know all of this already," he's saying. "But there are- incidents, things people see- that seem to indicate the presence of this kind of energy. A lot of the time they just get written off as hallucinations, hysterical fits. Or fakes, of course. Sometimes nobody notices anything at all. I guess the breaks in time and space are so tiny that our senses can't pick them up. But I figured if there was some way of detecting it, then- well, then the whole idea might get taken a little more seriously." Habit makes him break off there, turning red and giving Veidt a cautious sideways glance - but he's just smiling and nodding. "So, ah, anyway. That's what this is for."

It's a handheld device, the design based on that of the Geiger counter and scaled down a little, with a few of the strange, sinuous sigils from the illustrations in Wormius's volume incorporated into the wiring and inscribed on the outer case. Dan picks the detector up with both hands, holds it out, and tries not to draw breath too sharply when Veidt takes it from him.

Veidt is silent for a long moment, turning it over in his hands, tracing one of the inscribed characters with a fingertip. He stares intently at it for a moment, then blinks and looks abruptly back at Dan. "Decorations?"

"Not exactly." Dan frowns. "Having them there really seems to make it more effective. I haven't figured out how yet, but who knows. Maybe I will, one day. See, I used them here as well." He grabs another of his constructions, this one reminiscent of a small handgun, and runs his thumb along the barrel. The designs are repeated there, and on the handle, too. "This is what I've been using to direct the energy. It started out as a theoretical model, because in order to _have_ anything to direct, you'd need to generate it. You'd have to create tiny cracks in the fabric of reality, basically. But when I added these, I started to get readings from it. I haven't had the chance to do a practical test, but it should work."

"Fascinating," Veidt murmurs, "If not entirely unsurprising. You have, I'm sure, heard of the _Pnakotic Manuscripts_? Characters similar to these occur there, and, naturally, in Alhazred, too. There is, I'm told, a theory that this didn't originate as a system of writing, but of visual representation. Originally, they were pictures of a different order of existence- of creatures not entirely of this world. Of course, I have no way of knowing that this is true, but if they represent forms existent in a dimension parallel to ours, then... perhaps that's all it takes to bring two realities closer together. There are so many forces at work in this world that we still don't understand." A moment's pause, and Veidt's expression is so faraway that Dan isn't quite sure whether he's meant to respond, or even that his presence hasn't been completely forgotten. Then Veidt seems to gather himself, and he gives Dan a small smile. "May I?"

"Sure." Dan hands the pistol over. "Of course, with the alternative inscription you worked out earlier, I could probably work out another design. Something similar might work, but... I don't know. It's unidirectional- it feels a little clumsy. I'd like to try something with a bit more flexibility..."

As he muses aloud, Veidt is turning the pistol over in his hands, inspecting it, testing its weight with smooth, precise motions that manage to look practised although he's never seen the thing before today, not a movement wasted.

Huh.

Before he has thought about manners or appropriateness, or given his own social awkwardness a chance to catch up with him, Dan's stepping forward, taking the pistol from Veidt and setting it down carefully on the table.

"Give me your hand," he says, and Veidt shoots him a curious sideways glance, but does as he asks.

It's not the sort of hand that belongs to someone accustomed to tinkering with bits of metal and wood and wire - it's a scholar's hand, or a musician's, unblemished and graceful (and warm to the touch, though somewhere below the level of consciousness he's been expecting someone as immaculate as Veidt to be cool as polished stone.) Dan just traces its outlines with his thumb, the bare bones of a design taking shape in his mind's eye. Then he's scrabbling for paper and a pencil again, aware that he has to get his idea down on paper if he ever wants to recreate it.

Veidt just looks at him for a moment, a bemused smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. Then he retracts his outstretched arm, pushing both hands deep into his pockets, and waits, watching.

"Oh." Dan blinks at him, suddenly aware that he may have just been incredibly rude. "Uh, thanks. Sorry if that seemed a little..." He trails off.

"Don't mention it," Veidt says mildly, and somehow Dan can't quite manage to feel embarrassed.


	3. Chapter 3

This is impressive work. Even Adrian has to admit that much.

The design is intricate; more complex than any of the other creations Dreiberg has shown him. It's a pair of gloves, essentially, designed to fit the wearer's hands without inhibiting movement. Thin strips of what looks like electrical wiring run down the fingers, a tiny switch on the underside of each wrist breaking the circuit. The pattern of symbols he sketched out two weeks ago is stitched into the soft leather with painstaking exactitude. Dreiberg must have done that himself.

While that isn't exactly surprising - the precision required for this kind of small-scale engineering must translate quite easily into skill with a needle - it does furnish a rather entertaining mental image, and Adrian allows himself a small smile. Dreiberg's unquestionable potential usefulness aside, Adrian is starting to _like_ him. He's so enthusiastic, so cheerfully absorbed by his work, so earnest in his pursuit of knowledge. The sort of man who wouldn't know an ulterior motive if it were standing in front of him.

"Everything okay?" Dreiberg asks, gesturing at the gloves with an uncertain smile.

"Oh, absolutely." Adrian holds up one hand, wiggling his fingers dramatically. "I must say, I'm stunned. And you've produced these in such a short period of time, too."

"Don't say that until you've tried them out," Dreiberg warns him, turning his face away. (Futilely, since the blush reaches his ears regardless.)

Adrian raises an eyebrow. "That might be rather imprudent, don't you think? I'm well aware that Flatbush isn't the most salubrious area of New York, but your landlady will probably still notice if we burn the place to the ground or reduce it to rubble." Of course, in aesthetic terms, ridding the neighborhood of this particular building could be considered a public service-but no, that's uncharitable, and ill befits the surprisingly chipper mood he's in today.

"I like it here." Dreiberg shrugs. "And my mother really doesn't, which is a definite point in its favor. But no, I didn't mean we should test them out in here. I know a place. It's pretty secluded, and it should give us enough space. It's kind of a long trip, but - you have the rest of the day free, right?" He turns back around, and he's grinning now, excitement clearly overcoming his usual awkwardness. Adrian can't help smiling back.

It is a long trip. They take the Staten Island ferry, and then the trolley; it's lucky that the precious pieces of equipment are small enough to be safely tucked away on their persons. As a rule, public transport is not something that Adrian goes in for - but the crowds have thinned out by the time they step off in Port Richmond, and in any case, he's barely noticed the crowdedness or the heat or the smell of too many bodies pressed into a tight space, engrossed in the hushed, excited conversation the he and Dreiberg have been holding beneath the rattle of the trolley car and the hum of other voices.

While he never wants for social contacts and hangers-on, Adrian is a solitary creature by inclination, and there are few with whom he's ever felt the desire to exchange anything more than pleasantries. But when Dreiberg's enthusiasms are allowed to shine through, he proves to be an agreeable companion, and the journey is far less unpleasant than Adrian might have expected.

Their destination turns out to be a good-sized patch of waste ground, hidden from public view on three sides by trees and crumbling stonework, and bordered on the other by (of course) an overgrown churchyard. The building itself is old-likely seventeenth century-and shabby, but appears structurally intact, and Adrian eyes it with caution.

"Disused, I assume?"

"Oh, sure. It's been deserted since halfway through the last century. Of course, there are sometimes rumors..." Dreiberg's eyes go wide and round behind his glasses. "Some of the locals claim to have seen hooded figures disappearing into the church just before dawn. Maybe they're ghosts. Maybe they're devil worshippers." He chuckles. "But I'm not scared of them if you're not."

"I'm sure they won't dare come out to molest us during the hours of daylight, at least" Adrian agrees, but he's glancing upwards, taking in the still-imposing gray pile with its curiously shaped steeple. Its shadow falls across the entirety of the waste ground, and although it's a clear day, the whole scene is rendered dim and cheerless. "Though there is rather something about the place."

"It does get a little eerie," Dreiberg shrugs, smiling. "But that fits, right? We are dealing with mysterious forces, after all."

"Indeed. And on that note-shall we?"

Dreiberg nods, his smile fading a little. "Sure." He takes off his glasses, rubs at the bridge of his nose. "'Course, as I told you before, I haven't had much opportunity to test these things. I can't really vouch for their efficacy..."

"I have every faith in your abilities, Dan."

"That's what bothers me." A quick, nervy downward glance. "I don't want to disappoint anybody, I guess."

Adrian reaches out, gives his shoulder an experimental pat. "I know as well as you do that we're working entirely within the realm of enquiry here. Nothing can be guaranteed. And in any case, it's hardly as though you owe me anything. I'm here because I'm interested. That's all."

Dreiberg nods agreement and looks back up, right into Adrian's eyes. "You're right," he says. "Thanks."

He needn't have worried. When he cocks the pistol and presses the trigger, there's a half-second where nothing happens-and then the very air seems to shudder and come to life, and there's a light, dazzling and cool and _alien_, that shoots right across the patch of waste ground and takes a small branch off one of the neighboring trees.

In color, it's almost golden, though not quite. It could be the light of the sun, but filtered through feet of sea-water, or the atmosphere of another planet. A light from between worlds.

Dreiberg stares down at the gun in his hand, blinking, as though uncertain of the actuality of what's just happened. Then he gasps and laughs, and is running heedless of the uneven ground to check the impact point, his impatience more befitting a child of ten than a gentleman amateur.

Adrian just watches him, keeping his expression calmly indulgent, careful not to betray too much of excitement. He may well be able to use this - but he'll save speculation for later, for when he is alone.

Dreiberg's eyes are still bright when he returns. "It works!" he says. "It actually works!" His voice rises in amazement, as much question as exclamation, and he watches eagerly as Adrian slides his hands back into the gloves and flicks the switch on his wrist. Were Adrian given to sentimental attachments, he'd probably find Dreiberg's artlessness charming. But-

But then he is not thinking about Dreiberg any longer, because at the edges of his field of vision there is a darkness pregnant with endless crawling movement, and there are voices just beyond his hearing, competing in rustling whispers to say something of vast import, and he cannot help but think of the blank and unknowable gaze of the idol that is waiting even now in his study, waiting for-

"Just try to direct it by moving your fingers," Dreiberg is saying. "It's probably going to be more difficult to manipulate than the gun, at first, but it should be more versatile. The energy should be travelling along these conductors, here." And his hand is on Adrian's, he is running his fingers along them, sure and unfaltering in the flush of first success.

Adrian squeezes his eyes shut. He breathes in deeply, and does his best to concentrate upon the moment - upon the instructions, and that light, certain touch, and not those voices whispering in the dark recesses of his memory. This is not the time. He will control this; he will not be overtaken by it. He will not think about what he saw at Giza. Not now.

"Adrian? Are you all right?"

"Fine, thank you," Adrian hears his voice say, and is grateful, not for the first time, that dissimulation comes to him as naturally as breathing. "A slight headache; that's all." With some effort, he opens his eyes. He looks straight ahead. "Shall we give it a try?"

There is no light this time. What emanates from Adrian's fingertips is more an absence thereof, spidering like cracks in glass and eating light out of the world: forked lightning in reverse. It's beautiful. And with it the crawling motion seems to spread, and the whispering voices to rise.

To shut them out, Adrian concentrates upon the crooked non-light, the patterns it forms, the way it changes, following the movements of his hands. It wavers more than the cool, steady golden light, but it looks as though it should be manipulable. Right now it's just disappearing into the ground, the scrubby grass blackening and crumbling where the energy touches it.

Dreiberg is watching it too, fascinated, the grin still wide and bright on his face. "Amazing," he breathes. "I still feel as if I should be pinching myself. You'd think we really were working with magic."

Adrian looks up, and smiles at him. "Not at all, Dan. You've achieved a true scientific breakthrough here. You should be proud."

"Not without help," Dreiberg says, seriously. "Thank you." Then he laughs. "But really, you look like a cover illustration from one of the pulp magazines. The evil sorcerer, plotting his malevolent schemes..."

The switch snicks as Adrian presses it back into the 'off' position. He pulls off the gloves, and looks sharply at his wristwatch.

"Shall we head for home?" he says. "It's getting late."

Dreiberg frowns, and for a moment Adrian thinks he is about to ask a question.

He is clearly wise enough not to. "Sure," he says, pocketing the gun and turning back to the direction from which they came. "Let's go."

By the time they step off the ferry, Adrian's previously-invented headache has begun to manifest itself for real. Poetic justice apparently exists. He arrives back at Dreiberg's rooms resolved to stay only long enough to be polite. They've already dissected the afternoon's experiments several times over during the trip back; a few minutes, and then he'll make his excuses and leave.

He's thinking longingly of the cool quiet of his own study as they start up the staircase, and it's a rude surprise when the way is blocked by Dreiberg's landlady, her hands firmly planted on her hips, her lips pressed together in a tight line.

"Your friend's here again," she informs Dreiberg, her eyebrows drawing together. "He's been waiting close to two hours. Told him you were out for the day, but he flat-out refused to leave."

"Uh, thanks," Dreiberg says, glancing past her and biting his lip. "I'm sure he didn't mean to trouble you."

"Sure." The landlady doesn't sound convinced, and she lingers on the landing as they make their way up. Dreiberg is frowning, and Adrian decides that inquiring as to the identity of this troublesome friend while she eavesdrops would be bad form. But when the door opens and he sees the diminutive, red-haired individual who is standing in Dreiberg's front room - arms folded, scowling and smelling faintly of fish - he decides that her distaste is perhaps not unjustified.

Apparently, the feeling is mutual: on sight, the red-haired man shoots Adrian a fierce glare, as though he's the one who has appeared uninvited. Then he looks back at Dreiberg.

"Apologies for delay in calling on you," he says. "Some difficulty in getting here. Do not recommend coastal bus from Arkham."

"Sorry to hear that. I was starting to wonder where you'd gotten to." Dreiberg gives him a sympathetic look. "Uh, I don't think you know Adrian Veidt?"

"Have heard of you," the red-haired man says, with a curt nod in Adrian's direction, and in a voice that suggests he would really rather he hadn't. "Walter Kovacs." His arms stay folded across his chest.

"It's nice to meet you," Adrian says, and it's impossible for him not to arch an eyebrow in amusement. He recognizes the name, though not Kovacs' face, and after a second he remembers where from.

He's read plenty of obscure periodicals since his return to the US, information on the occult and the more specialized branches of scientific research being difficult to find in the mainstream press. Some time ago, one of them ran an article by Ambrose Martins - an English writer, and an occasional correspondent of Adrian's - concerning his researches into what he called the 'Old Religion'. There were a number of vocally unhappy responses from the conservative element of the journal's readership in the letters' page of the next issue, the controversy (such as it was) eventually continuing for some months. Accusations of blasphemy, of encouraging corruption and unnatural practices, even suggestions that Martins himself must be a devil-worshipper. Adrian had read them with some amusement. Kovacs, he realizes, was one of the letter-writers - a particularly rabid example, if memory serves.

Well, the open hostility with which Kovacs is eyeing him is no longer cause for surprise. He's having more trouble working out what on Earth must possess Dreiberg to associate with a crank of this sort.

"Need to talk to you, Daniel," Kovacs is saying, shooting another sharp look in Adrian's direction. "Privately."

Dreiberg heaves a sigh. "Adrian is my _guest_," he says. "We've been working together. I'm not about to turn him out of my rooms just because you don't want to hold a conversation in company."

Kovacs gives a displeased-sounding grunt. "Would prefer to keep details to those who have proven themselves trustworthy."

"Really, Dan, it's no trouble," Adrian says, spreading his hands. "I should be leaving soon, in any case."

"I wouldn't dream of it, Adrian. Walter, I just don't see what can be so important that you need to be rude to my visitors over it-"

"Fine." Kovacs' scowl deepens. "Something came up during my visit."

"Oh - is it your mother?" Dreiberg gives him a worried look, but it's met with a contemptuous little headshake.

"No. Same as always." Kovacs fishes in the pocket of his overcoat, and comes out with a tightly-folded piece of paper. "Discovered this. At the home of one of her... friends. Deciphered some sections; not all. Hoped you could be of some assistance."

He unfolds it, and hands it to Dreiberg. Adrian pauses for a brief second, then decides that, given Kovacs' apparent lack of concern for manners, he'll prioritize his curiosity over politeness for now, and peers over his shoulder.

It's a note, mostly written in crude cipher, but with a few characters that don't quite fit the pattern. They're more elaborate, more archaic, in design. Adrian knows immediately why these are familiar. He's been worrying over them for three years, ever since he first saw them at Giza, carved into the base of that horrible little figurine.


	4. Chapter 4

"Who is 'she'?" Adrian asks, over Dan's shoulder. Dan turns his head, blinking at the sudden sharpness of his tone.

Kovacs glowers at both of them. "Don't recall inviting questions from third parties."

"You've understood the cipher, then." Adrian raises an eyebrow. "Impressive. It's crude, but archaic. Not something I would have expected to see in use in this day and age. But given the defensiveness of your tone, I'd guess that you still don't know who or what it refers to."

Dan shoots him what he hopes is a warning look, and Kovacs makes one of the inarticulate grumbling noises that usually indicate an imminent tirade. But the tirade doesn't come, which means that Adrian is right.

"Suppose _you_ do?" Kovacs says, tilting his head to one side in challenge.

"I can do my best to be of assistance." Adrian holds out his hand for the paper. Kovacs spreads it out on the coffee table instead, and they crowd around it, Adrian pushing his hands back into his pockets with an amused little half-smile. Well, at least he doesn't seem to be taking Kovacs too badly. Dan's lost potential friends this way before now.

The cipher doesn't make a lot of sense to him - it's all lines and hollow squares - apart from one set of characters, the last 'word', he guesses. He doesn't recognize it, exactly, but the script is curling, more sinuous than the rest of the message, and something about the way it is shaped reminds him of the symbols in his equations, the ones he's been using in his experiments. Maybe it's the same language, or something related.

"'The red crescent rises three nights hence'-well, that's Red Hook, they've hardly been subtle there-'and we shall carry her there. Young blood carries the most of life.'" Adrian's smile has faded now; he's all seriousness, eyes intent on the scrap of paper. "'Until then, beloved of-'" He stops, eyes trained on that strange set of symbols, the curling ones that don't quite seem to fit the pattern.

Kovacs' expression grows scornful. "Grateful for your assistance."

"Actually, you should be. I can't tell you how this name should be pronounced, since the language fell out of use centuries ago-possibly millennia. But I do know to what it refers." Adrian's eyes narrow. "Tell me, who exactly is this... 'friend' of your mother's?"

Dan can hear the inverted commas in Adrian's voice, and for a moment actually thinks Kovacs is going to throw a punch at him. But if Adrian notices that Kovacs' face is rage-pale and his hands balled into fists, he doesn't show it. He just picks up the paper and points to the part he's been looking at.

"I can't help wondering why any living soul in this day and age would be talking about the worship of an entity whose cult had passed into obscure legend before the dawn of the Roman Empire. I'm sure you can understand why I'm interested." Then Adrian's expression turns solemn again. "I _also_ can't help wondering what, precisely, is going to happen to 'her'. The texts I've been able to study carry only vague hints as to the nature of their rites, but I understand some of them were quite barbaric."

"Believe that to be true," Kovacs says, and Adrian glances at him quickly. But Kovacs' expression is closed off, and he looks down and tugs at a button on his coat sleeve, refusing to elaborate.

In response to the questioning look Adrian shoots him, Dan can only shrug. Asking Kovacs about anything when he doesn't want to share is about as much use as hitting yourself over the head with a book to try to find out what's inside it. There's no use in pressing the matter now. Maybe Dan will get a chance to talk to him later.

"Must prevent it," Kovacs is muttering, and he has that distant look in his eyes that means he's about to do something either incomprehensible or incredibly foolhardy. "Need information. Someone must know the location. Three nights... should begin searching immediately."

Dan's eyes widen. "Shouldn't we call the police?"

"No," Kovacs says, quickly.

"But Sergeant Mason could-"

"Actually, I think that Mr. Kovacs may be right," Adrian says, folding his arms. Dan stares at him, but he doesn't volunteer any further information, just turns his attention back to Kovacs. "You'll never manage it alone, however. You need help."

Kovacs doesn't argue with him, and that's when Dan realizes that this is really real, this is serious, there's a person in danger out there. That suddenly he's involved in something urgent, something with consequences outside the confines of his workshop.

"I own a small storage space in the docks myself," Adrian is saying. "Getting hold of a plan of the area should be easy enough. I have contacts who can identify the buildings standing empty, the locations likely to be used for some of the more clandestine goings-on that occur there."

"Criminal contacts, you mean," Kovacs growls, sharp-eyed, and Adrian shrugs.

"Useful to have, and no less trustworthy than any other men whose primary motivation is profit. I pay them better than anyone else could, after all."

"Can't say I agree. Would rather work alone than make deals with-"

"Kovacs," Dan breaks in, holding up his hands. "If this is what it sounds like then - we can't just refuse useful information because you don't like the sound of the people giving it." At the word 'we', Kovacs gives him a sceptical look, and Dan knows there's going to be at least one difficult conversation in his near future. But he carries on. "You don't have time to do everything alone, and there could be someone in real danger here. Let Adrian handle finding out the location. There are other things we need to look out for. People recently arrived in Red Hook from the Arkham area, reports of missing women. I'm pretty sure your methods will be more useful there. I - I can even help you. If you like."

Dan actually surprises himself with that. A few weeks ago he wouldn't even have made the suggestion. He doesn't even realize how tight-wound he is with apprehension until Kovacs gives him a nod, and he feels the tension in him start to dissipate.

Adrian is looking at him over Kovacs' head. It's an opaque look, difficult to fathom, but Dan thinks - or hopes, anyway - that it's approving.

* * *

"...of course, that was in '95. Before your time, I expect."

Dan nods and smiles at the elderly shopkeeper, one eye on the door, willing Kovacs to please, please, _please_ hurry up. The strategy they've worked out is pretty effective, in that it's halfway through the second day and they've already gotten through most of the area. Dan talks to the respectable citizens - the store owners, the foremen at the docks, the old-timers doggedly clinging to their homes despite Red Hook's ongoing slide into poverty - and he's unthreatening and well-spoken enough that they seem willing to talk to him about pretty much anything. Kovacs takes the lowlifes, darting into the speakeasies and the alleys where clandestine deals are made, places where a local's knowledge of the codes and a ready left hook are more useful than clear eyes and a firm handshake. Between the two of them, they have most people covered. It's a pity nobody seems to know anything.

The shopkeeper's monologue winds down, eventually, and Dan buys a _Post_ from her and leans against the wall outside, hat pulled down low over his eyes. Over the top of his paper, he eyes the hulking grey building opposite, an abandoned warehouse, and at the moment the most likely location for whatever's due to happen tomorrow night. Adrian has been holed up in his study for the last two days, with a detailed plan of the area taking shape on his desk. (A mercy, since Dan's pretty sure this whole working arrangement won't last long if his oldest friend and his newest are forced to spend any more time in close proximity to each other than is strictly necessary.) Of the empty buildings Adrian's contacts have identified, this is the easiest to get into without being seen.

Dan kind of wishes he'd had longer to look around Adrian's study before heading out here, not having visited before. Every single book and artefact on the shelves looks as though it would be worth at least half a day's scrutiny. But right now - right now, this is more important.

Funny, in daylight the warehouse doesn't seem brooding and menacing like the church in Port Richmond, doesn't give him any reason to shiver. It just looks shabby and dirtied with smoke, and kind of sad.

The shop's door-chime rings violently then, and Dan glances around in startlement. Kovacs is halfway through the door, obviously not having seen Dan in his hurry, and he whips around, wild-eyed, when Dan calls his name. He's obviously been running, his face beet red, his breath coming in hoarse, tearing gasps.

"Found out who she is," he pants, holding up a sheet of paper, apparently torn from some wall, a short notice printed on it in plain black type. There is a sketch beneath it, a child's round face. "Missing girl."

Things move pretty fast after that. Quite by accident, on his next call Dan overhears a customer in the store whose owner he is talking to complain about his new neighbors, recent arrivals from Arkham who have moved into a previously abandoned tenement building, and who make strange noises at strange hours of the night. He pretends a casual, if mildly disapproving, interest, says that he thinks they may be cousins of an associate of his, and to his unending amazement, the customer gives him the address.

Kovacs is in favor of just showing up there right away, battering down the door and rescuing the girl. Dan manages to talk him out of that - they don't even know for sure that she's at the address, and confronting the people there might just put her in danger - and Adrian nods assent in the background, says that surely it would be better to wait until the appointed time, when they know for certain they'll have an opportunity to intervene. For a moment, Dan half-expects Kovacs to storm out in disgust, run down there and try to take the girl without their help, but then he just shoves his hands deep into his coat pockets and grimaces, and says, "Fine."

And now they're here. Kovacs is waiting outside, secreted in one of the narrow alleys that riddle this part of Red Hook like a warren, ready to stop anyone who tries to escape through the little side-entrance that's invisible from the street.

Dan and Adrian are hidden on an upper floor, seated behind a stack of old packing-crates for safety's sake, watching the sky darken through the gaps in the shutters and breathing the rot-and-salt smell of the docks through five storeys of mildew. Dan's fingers find the outline of the pistol in his jacket, run over it for the tenth time, or maybe the fifteenth. They've been sitting in silence for some time, and the quiet is growing heavy now, oppressive.

"Why'd you agree with him?" Dan asks, to break it.

Adrian raises an eyebrow.

"Kovacs. When he didn't want to get the police involved. What shouldn't they know?"

For a long moment, Adrian just looks at him. "Tell me about Kovacs," he says, eventually, as though it ought to be sufficient answer. "How do you know each other?"

Dan frowns at the unexpected question, and he pauses before he opens his mouth to reply. Not just because of Adrian's puzzling non-answer to his own query, but because he finds himself wanting to be careful with his words, to choose the correct ones.

While Adrian hasn't been anything but polite to Kovacs, it's patently obvious they can't stand one another, and while that doesn't _surprise_ Dan, for some reason it pains him. Funny, because nobody else he knows is over-fond of Kovacs, and Kovacs certainly doesn't seem to be fond of anybody. It doesn't seem to bother him, and so it's never bothered Dan when acquaintances and relatives mutter about unsuitability and strangeness and force polite little smiles that barely hide their distaste. He's always figured that he doesn't need their approval, he doesn't need them to like his friends. His friend.

But maybe it isn't that. Maybe it's that he's gotten used to their disapproval, to their already having written him off as a hopeless eccentric. But Adrian... hasn't done that. He listens to Dan, encourages him gently when he trails off in embarrassment halfway through an idea, acts as though his interests really are worthwhile. Even Kovacs has never quite managed that last one. And Dan- well, he doesn't want to lose it, he guesses.

"I've known him a long time," he says, eventually. "Since we were kids. I must have been about ten, he would've been a couple years older. He showed up on our doorstep, new in town, looking for work. Said he'd do anything. It turned out that he was pretty good with his hands, good at mending and stitching things. Taught me, actually." He gestures at the gloves that Adrian is wearing, and the look of surprise he gets in return is gratifying. "So my mother got him an apprenticeship with her dressmaker. I guess he always felt a little indebted to my parents, so he stayed in touch. Stuck up for me a lot. I mean, the neighborhood kids always thought I was kind of odd, more interested in reading about birds and drawing airships than falling out of trees, so... well, he got pretty good at scaring them off, anyway. Helped me learn to handle myself a little, too."

(Actually, not all of that is entirely true. Dan _was_ interested in climbing trees, and he didn't ever really mind falling out of them - just being pushed.)

"He's clearly very fond of you. That's commendable." Adrian gives him a faint, unfathomable smile. "What about his family? Do you know anything about them?"

"Not a whole lot." Dan shrugs. "His father disappeared before he was born, and they never had any money. His mother got involved in some kind of local scandal, so he cut out and ran to New York." He frowns. "He goes back there every couple of months now. I don't really know why, though. Doesn't seem to make him any happier."

"I thought as much."

Dan opens his mouth to ask what Adrian is talking about, and then he hears a sound that sends a cold thrill down his spine, and falls silent.

It's a low, rhythmic chanting, just a few repeated notes in some unfamiliar tonal system, accompanied by the tramp of at least twenty pairs of feet. They are at ground level, probably entering the building.

He glances over at Adrian, who is listening with his head tilted slightly to one side, an expression of wonderment on his face. Then he seems to shake himself, and he composes his features and nods at Dan.

They make their way down cautiously, holding their breaths over creaking floorboards, Dan clutching the pistol tightly in his hand. From the lowest landing on the staircase, they can see the ground floor without being noticed themselves, hidden by shadow. Dan has time to see the circle of robed and hooded figures that is taking shape in the centre of the room, to see Kovacs' silhouette appear at the side-entrance - and then Kovacs starts, and turns and runs like hell in the other direction, into the maze of Red Hook.

Dan hears Adrian's sharp intake of breath behind him, stares down into the center of the circle.

There is no girl.


	5. Chapter 5

In the few seconds before all hell breaks loose, Adrian stares down into the circle of hooded figures, taking in every detail that he can. Two of them stand outside the ring, swinging incense burners of dark wood and strangely-colored metal. There are two more at the center, one of them reading in a low, sonorous voice from a sheaf of papers (not a bound volume, he notes, disappointed), the other clutching something small and indistinct against its chest. It takes Adrian a moment to register what it is.

It's a kitten. A very small, grey kitten, clearly far too young to have been separated from its mother. It isn't struggling or squirming, apparently lulled by the fumes of the incense or the repetitive chant that is echoing continuously around the lower floor.

The chant only stops when it is interrupted by Kovacs' running footsteps, echoing away down one of Red Hook's innumerable backstreets, and a dozen pairs of eyes turn towards the open door. The figure with the sheaf of papers stops reading. There's a second of stillness, and then a noise of panicked footfalls as the circle breaks and the worshippers cluster together in the middle of the dim, echoing space, casting fearful glances around it. Then one of them looks up.

For a moment the figure frowns up into the shadows, hood falling back from his face (young, but pale and gaunt), eyes narrowing. Perhaps they have managed to remain undetected- but then the gaunt man's gaze lands on them, and he looks Adrian right in the eyes.

He nudges the figure in the center, the one with the sheaf of papers, muttering something in a voice too low for Adrian to understand. And the figure with the papers raises its free arm, and begins to yell something in a high, frantic voice.

"_Ia_!" it says, "_Ia, lloi_-"

Adrian hears the click of the safety-catch a split second before the bright beam of light shoots out from the pistol in Dan's hand, right at the huddle of figures.

Of course, it's at that moment that the kitten decides to wake up and make a bid for freedom, straight into the path of the golden light. It stops moving immediately, crumpling to the floor in a soft little heap. Dan gasps, and Adrian doesn't need to see his face to imagine his stricken look.

The central figure is raising its arm again, is opening its mouth. They'll have to act quickly.

It's by no means certain that the incantation will have any effect - the cult doesn't even have a |_Necronomicon_ of its own, and its understanding of the powers it worships is probably limited - but Adrian decides he would prefer not to find out the hard way. So he flicks the switch on his wrist, flexes his fingers once, and takes aim.

And there, in the back of his head, it begins. The faintest little rustle, at first, and then the voices, whispering and rising and twisting around one another, and the power humming in his bones like movement deep beneath the earth, and the darkness crawling through him and crawling out, snaking darkly towards the figure with the raised arm, deadening and blackening and ready to feed on whatever life it finds-

It's Dan's hand on his shoulder that snaps him out of it, brings him back to himself long enough to flick the switch to the 'off' position.

The central figure has dropped its sheaf of papers, is sagging down in the arms of the gaunt young worshipper in a dead faint. Another figure from the huddle darts in to scoop up the sheaf of papers, hurriedly enough not to notice that one of them is still on the floor, and then the worshippers scatter with ringing footsteps, their commotion oddly small in the silence of the cavernous room.

At what was the center of the circle, there is a jagged, burnt-black mark scored into the floor. Adrian stares at it, breathing in as slowly as he can, doing his best to gather his thoughts. Dan is looking at him worriedly.

Adrian swallows and tries to smile, begins to tug off the gloves. "The paper left down there could be useful," he says, his voice coming out mercifully level. "We should collect it. For future study."

"I think we should go after Kovacs first," Dan says quietly.

"Of course." Adrian nods. But as they head for the door, he sees Dan cast another sad little glance over at the little heap of fur in the middle of the floor, and he hesitates. Then he's back in the room, scooping up the piece of paper and the kitten, tucking them both safely inside his jacket. There's a crackle, as of static electricity, as his fingers sink into the kitten's fur, and unless his eyes deceive him, a fizz of bright purple sparks. He blinks. And then, beneath his hand, the faint thud of a heartbeat. It's still alive.

Outside, full night has fallen, and there is an autumnal sharpness to the air. Adrian pulls his jacket around himself, and the sleeping kitten, a little more tightly.

Dan glances up and down the street, where several turnings lead off into the labyrinth of alleyways. After a moment, he heads in the direction of the darkest one.

"Kovacs probably took this one," he says. "It isn't visible from the street. And if my geography's correct, it should come out somewhere near that address with the mysterious neighbors. I figure that's where he'll be headed." He starts walking, and Adrian follows without a word.

After an interminable tramp in darkness down the twisting alley - the air thick with the stench of the waterfront, the shadows alive with scurrying rats - they emerge in a run-down residential area, before a dilapidated, salt-stained tenement building. More than one of its windows has no glass.

There is a movement in the gloom at the building's foot, and Adrian catches sight of a silhouetted figure peering through one of the lightless ground-floor windows. It's Kovacs. He is circling the building with soundless footsteps, inspecting it for weaknesses, a hunter ambushing its prey in the burrow. Then he stops, looking intently up at a balcony on the second floor. To all appearances, he's unaware of their presence, but as soon as Dan takes a step out of the mouth of the alley, he holds up one hand in a warning gesture. Another glance up at the window, and then he's crossing the street to join them.

"Found notice in a shop not far from here," he says to Dan, without looking at Adrian. "Before you learned the details. Asked a passer-by whether he knew anything about it. He said no, suggested that I call police. Looked concerned." His mouth twists contemptuously. "Disappeared into this building. Daylight. Unable to tell that it was abandoned. But he seemed uneasy. Left in a hurry. Should have guessed. Should have known. _Obvious_. Stupid." Kovacs isn't even looking at Dan any more. He seems to be talking to himself.

"You're not stupid," Dan tells him. "We had no idea who we were looking for, except for 'acolytes of some crazy religious cult'. I don't think they wear club pins."

Kovacs sniffs. "So should pay more attention to other signs." But when Dan places a reassuring hand on his shoulder, he doesn't shrug it off. It's a familiar gesture, more suggestive of the affection of brothers than of simple associates - and indeed, Kovacs' attachment to Dan does seem somewhat familial, being equalled only by his faith in the latter's inability to make sensible judgements on his own behalf.

Dan is always reluctant to place himself at the center of a story; perhaps that is why he shrugged off their closeness as stemming merely from a sense of indebtedness when Adrian questioned him about it. But there's a deeper kinship between these two. Even with only a few days' observation to go on, Adrian can see that. And sure enough, after a moment Kovacs' shoulders square, and he fixes a resolute gaze on the rotting building.

"Time to face the worst," he says.

Inside, the sea-stench is somehow stronger than it is in the streets, the shuttered darkness thick and engulfing. The floorboards are soft with dust, for the most part, and it's obvious where it has been recently trodden away.

The lower floor is deserted, and as they climb up one flight of stairs and then another, finding nothing, they find themselves no more inclined to conversation. (There is one room, on the second floor, swept clean and with strange figures inscribed on the floor and walls. Adrian would dearly love to get a closer look at them - but he's aware that to do so now would appear unforgivably callous, and so he reins in his curiosity and makes a mental note to return and investigate in the near future, in daylight if at all possible.) As they make their ascent, Kovacs' posture stiffens, his hands tightening into fists. Following close behind him, Dan is moving slowly and carefully - though he seems more concerned with keeping a watchful eye on his unpredictable friend than with ensuring his own safety, and when they reach the uppermost storey, Adrian has to place a hand on his shoulder to prevent him from stepping on a patch of floorboard dark with rot.

The entrance to the attic gapes dark in the high ceiling, and there is, naturally, no ladder. The whole place is as quiet as a building in such poor repair can possibly be. The worshippers from the warehouse will likely be back soon - and if they are discovered here, Adrian can forget about any future opportunities to investigate. There's probably little more they can do tonight. Looking at the tense set of Kovacs' shoulders, and the short, nervous glances Dan keeps throwing in his direction, he is about to suggest that they call it a night.

That's when they hear the noise. It's almost nothing: a soft intake of breath, immediately stifled, right above their heads. Dan's eyes widen in shock and then in concern, and even Kovacs is absolutely still for a half-second, his head inclined at a listening angle. Then he grips Dan's arm.

"Help me up," he says, urgently, jerking his head up at the entrance to the attic. Without a word, Dan nods and crouches down so that Kovacs can get onto his shoulders, a short huff of breath escaping him as he straightens up.

Kovacs' fingers reach just to the edge of the opening. Adrian hears their soft scrabbling in the dust, is reminded of rodents scurrying in darkness. (And of the softly insistent murmur and hiss of voices, voices, whispering voices- )

"Can't get a grip," Kovacs says, shaking his head impatiently. He's gripping Dan's shoulders to steady himself. "Need more height."

"Sure." Dan sends a cautious glance in Adrian's direction, and Adrian finds himself blinking. Heretofore, he's felt more like an observer than a participant in this little adventure, shadowing Dan who is shadowing Kovacs, and gleaning what information he can along the way. He prefers to see evidence firsthand, if possible, after all. That, surely, is the only reason he has followed them so unhesitatingly into the sordid belly of Red Hook.

"Maybe you should get up on my shoulders," Dan is saying to him. "You probably weigh a little less than I do..."

"I'm stronger than I look," Adrian sniffs. And he is, but the warm weight of Dan upon his shoulders bears down strangely upon him anyway. He glances down, to be certain that the sleeping kitten in his inner pocket is protected, and when he turns his head, the heavy tweed of Dan's suit scratches his cheek.

Suddenly he is not just watching, cataloguing information. He's in the real world again, with real people. He is _involved_.

Kovacs manages to scramble up into the attic this time, and he makes his way across the beams with surprising agility and little more noise than a cat. And then there's another sound that definitely does not come from Kovacs, a sharp, shocked little gasp. Kovacs' voice is muffled, and Adrian hears "...help you," followed by an emphatic, "_No_. No...quickly...not safe."

And when Dan lifts down a girl of perhaps ten years old, skinny and covered from head to toe in dust, he surprises himself with a brief flicker of relief.

The girl has a set, solemn expression, and a spider in her hair. She doesn't bother moving to brush it off.

"Hello there," Dan says, once she and Kovacs are safely on the ground. "We need to get you out of here. What's your name? Where are your parents?"

She looks back at him levelly, apparently well beyond the point of fear. "You're not the people from Arkham, are you?" she says.

"What? No. No, we're from New York."

The girl relaxes visibly. "Then you haven't come to take me to the festival."

Until now, Kovacs has simply been listening, the pinched severity of his expression perhaps a little less pronounced than usual. But now his frown deepens again. "What is 'the festival'?" he asks.

"I don't know." The girl shrugs. "They seemed to think it was real important. It only happens every hundred years, they said." She shivers, and looks down at her bare feet. "They took the cat today. For the ritual. They said they were saving me for the festival. They said I was gonna be real important too. I didn't believe them. I was going to wait until they'd all gone and run away. But they must have known. That's why they took away the ladder." Kovacs looks troubled, but when the girl looks up again, her expression is clear. "But you haven't come to take me there. So that's okay."

"Of course not," Dan reassures her, with a quick warning glance at Kovacs. "The only place we've come to take you is home."

After a moment's consideration, the girl gives him a small nod. "My parents' name is Roche," she says. "They live on Delapore Street."

"Perhaps," Adrian suggests, "this might be an opportune moment to call the police."

"Oh. Oh, sure." Dan nods, and looks down at the girl. "We should let Sergeant Mason send somebody to talk to your parents."

"We should. I'll go; I believe there's a public telephone a few blocks west."

"Thanks," Dan says, and after a second, a relieved smile breaks through his obvious concern. He has a smudge of dust on his nose. For some reason he does not care to think about too deeply, Adrian finds himself wanting, quite badly, to reach over and wipe it off.

Instead he smiles, graciously and calmly, and says, "Not at all."

In truth, though, the prospect of removing himself from the stage of this little human drama for a few minutes ought to be a welcome one. The nearness of these people, their concern for the welfare of a single child, is beginning to press in upon him. If he stays here much longer, it will surely envelop him too.

He glances back over his shoulder as he leaves. Dan is listening as Kovacs and the girl talk, nodding, cleaning the dust off his glasses with the sleeve of his jacket. His face is very kind.

* * *

On his way back to the tenement building, having made the call, Adrian feels something squirm sleepily in his inside jacket pocket. He excuses himself before Mason and his men show up, with an assurance that he'll provide any necessary statement at their earliest possible convenience, and what he hopes is a significant look in Dan's direction. The Roche girl's appearance has made keeping tonight's events secret an impossibility, and once the police learn what has been happening in Red Hook, the kitten will become evidence. Adrian can't allow that to happen, but he's fairly sure that Dan will be astute enough not to mention it.

(When, he wonders, did Dreiberg become _Dan_ in his head? He hadn't meant for that to happen.)

With an effort, he shakes the thought out of his head, forcing himself to focus on the matter at hand. The police will have no notion of the forces to which this little creature has been exposed, no way of knowing how it might have been affected. Even the little that he and Dan know - and really, it is very little - is better than that. Their research demands consideration, too; observing the kitten over the next few days or weeks may prove very useful.

Besides, he likes cats.

By the time Adrian has let himself into his study, the sleepy squirming has become full-blown struggling. The kitten lets out an indignant squeak as he frees it from his inside pocket (a delicate operation, thanks to the close proximity of silk lining and tiny claws) and deposits it on his desk.

It's a girl, perhaps seven weeks old, and brownish-gray - almost the color of a chocolate Siamese he saw in London once. But when she moves, something crackles and shimmers along her coat, and where the lamplight catches her fur, it appears deep purple. Fascinated, Adrian puts out a hand to touch it, and instead of the static shock he's been expecting, feels only a warm tingle. The kitten twists around on herself to sniff his hand, and then, having apparently satisfied herself that he's neither food nor a foe, commences exploring the office. She's a little unsteady on her feet, but no more so than usual for such a young creature. Any ill effects from her exposure to the energy are, apparently, yet to manifest themselves.

The house is quiet at this hour, the help all in bed, and Adrian closes the door carefully behind him before descending the stairs to the kitchen, keeping his footsteps light on the bare flags of the lower floor.

He pours out a saucer of milk, but there's nothing that will do for solid food. He'll have the cook order some fish tomorrow - even if that does mean he'll have to endure another of her lectures about giving up this ridiculous vegetarianism nonsense, since she doesn't yet seem to have noticed that he's no longer a boy of fourteen. He rid himself of most of his parents' possessions a long time ago, but firing their employees would have seemed unkind. Overly sentimental? Perhaps.

The kitten attacks the saucer of milk with alacrity enough to suggest she hasn't been properly fed in days, and doesn't even appear to notice when Adrian strokes the back of her head with his thumb. Her animal single-mindedness is endearing, reassuring. Adrian sighs deeply, feeling calmer than he has all evening now that he is away from Dan and Kovacs and their concern, the inescapable humanness of it all. He will need to be careful of them: he can see that much.

But this, he thinks, as the kitten jumps into his lap - this is one friend he can allow himself without too much worry. She will not compromise him.

A moment later, she's fast asleep on his knee. Adrian turns down the lamp, and sits still in the dark for a long while.

* * *

The cloth flicks over the picture-frame, which is already gleaming brass-button-bright. It's one of the newer portraits - the late Dr. Halsey, if Adrian recalls correctly, which he usually does - and it stands out baldly in the dingy surroundings of the Miskatonic Club, being one of the few objects in the room not yet darkened by decades of tobacco smoke. The man polishing it is frowning, lips pursed in a sour little moue of disapproval.

"Red Hook?" he is saying. "You'll never get _that_ place cleaned up. Not while they keep letting them come over here."

Dan shifts uncomfortably in his seat, and Adrian feels a flicker of irritation at the polishing man. Dan actually fits in here better than Adrian does, looking quite at home amid the heavy baize furniture and the cabinets of zoological curios, and the portraits of successful alumni looking benevolently down from behind their whiskers. As a matter of fact, it's the only place other than the workshop he ever _has_ seen Dan look at home, and seeing Dan discomfited angers him perhaps a little more than it should. He has to bite his lip to keep himself from saying something unfortunate.

"All I'm saying," the polishing man continues, "is that, if you're going to come to live in the USA, you can't expect to go on acting exactly as you did at home. It isn't right."

Mason, seated in the corner chair, sighs impatiently. "We didn't come here to hear you pontificate, Gardner," he says. "I don't recall anyone asking for an opinion. You can make judgements on what's right when you're perfect yourself." He glances, just momentarily, over at the huge, moustached man who is scowling and drinking something amber-colored and probably illegal at the bar, and the polishing man - Gardner - flushes and falls silent.

Adrian follows his gaze, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Dan see him looking, blink, and glance quickly away.

When he next addresses Mason, he's careful to be courteous as ever, but his tone is a degree colder.

Really, he expected no less. Dan may be an eccentric, but he's a respectable man. And Adrian has nothing to worry about, in any case - at least, not where his preferences are concerned. A couple of brief, illicit undergraduate trysts; nothing worth the digging up. Any revelation would be as damaging to the revealer as to him.

Still, he leaves early that evening, having ensured that Mason has all the details he needs, and that the details of what he saw are consistent with the accounts of Dan and Kovacs. Nerves infuriatingly jangled, he makes his excuses and steps outside, breathing deeply of the autumn air to calm his thoughts. It's cold, with a touch of winter in it, just beginning to bite.


	6. Chapter 6

"Ten weeks, you think?" Dan frowns. "She was tiny when we found her. I'm sure she shouldn't have gotten this big already."

"You're right, of course." Adrian smiles fondly at the rescued kitten - if you can call her that, given that she's already the size of a fully-grown housecat - who is currently pawing curiously through the stack of assorted papers she's just knocked off his desk. "I hadn't quite anticipated this. Though at least the kitchen staff won't have to worry about laying rat-traps for very much longer."

"You think it's something to do with-"

"The energy to which she was exposed in the warehouse? Oh, without a doubt. In addition to the accelerated growth rate, there's - well, I'll show you. Here, Bubastis."

The kitten, predictably, doesn't respond, and Dan can't help smiling quietly at the ridiculous name - even if it does fit the ambience of Adrian's home pretty well. The house is filled with bits and pieces of ancient worlds, artefacts that must be worth a fortune apiece - more a three-dimensional encyclopaedia of world history than a place to live in - but the kitten seems at home here, skittering and jumping around like it's her own personal playground, every bit as though she really is an ancient Egyptian feline goddess. A particularly small and capricious feline goddess, that is.

After a second, Adrian sighs and scoops her up onto his lap, where she immediately commences batting at his tie with a paw. He rakes a hand through her coat, fingers splayed, and Dan can see the faint purplish shimmer when her fur moves, as though another light is shining on it, a light that is coming from somewhere outside this room. Somewhere that he cannot see.

"That's amazing," he murmurs.

"Isn't it?" Adrian scratches the top of the kitten's head with his thumb, not looking at all perturbed by the proximity of those needle-sharp claws, or the fur that's all over his suit jacket. Over the past couple of weeks, he's come to display an almost paternal affection for the little (or not-so-little) creature; she seems able to do no wrong in his eyes.

Funny, really, considering he's barely even mentioned the Roche girl since they found her. Dan wonders if there's some kind of displacement going on.

"The family offered Kovacs a reward," he mentions, voice carefully casual. "He wouldn't take it, of course." Though Kovacs has seemed a little happier since they found the girl, a touch less sullen and tightly-wound. As though he's finally done something he can be proud of. "They're good people. No money, just ordinary, but- decent, you know?"

"I'm afraid I haven't had the pleasure," Adrian says mildly. "Kovacs appears to have a much larger emotional stake in the affair than you or I. It would seem churlish to interfere."

For a moment, Dan thinks that maybe he's being reproved, but Adrian just carries on talking.

"Besides," he's saying, eyes modestly downcast, "I'm afraid I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to talk to a child. I was never very good with them, even when I was one myself."

Well, Dan sure as hell knows how that feels. (Being an awkward kid, that is - now that he's living in the adult world, he's decided that children, more often than not, make a lot more sense than grown-ups.) He sees Adrian's faint, regretful smile and returns it, and tries not to examine too deeply the relief that he is feeling.

"By the way," Adrian adds, eyes widening, as though the thought has only just occurred to him, "I don't suppose the little girl has mentioned anything further about 'the festival'?"

"Not as far as I know. Why? You have any idea what it might mean?"

A shrug. "I'm not certain. No matter." Then Adrian's tone brightens. "The writer friend I mentioned to you is in town at the end of the month. He's something of an authority on religions predating the Judeo-Christian belief systems. Perhaps he'll be able to shed some light on the matter."

Dan nods. "Sounds interesting. Introduce me?"

"Naturally." Adrian smiles again. "Of course, by the time he arrives, it _will_ be almost Hallowe'en. I think perhaps I'll have a party."

* * *

Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea, Dan thinks, as the swirling mass of bodies parts and closes ranks before his eyes for what feels like the hundredth time. He hasn't seen Adrian in an hour, and while he knows that cocktail parties are hardly Kovacs' scene (his friend being one of the few people who actually takes the liquor ban seriously) he'd be glad to have even a disapproving lecture to listen to right now. Sure, there are people here who he knows, but he's not much good at small-talk, and he feels lost among the twirling, fashionably-dressed crowd. He certainly doesn't feel like listening to Adrian's old college friends, who are frankly intimidating, posing like fin-de-siècle decadents, each one trying to be more loudly risqué than the next guy. When a new gap opens in the crowd and he spies Laurel and Osterman gazing dreamily at one another over the punchbowl, Dan decides it's high time he escaped for a little while.

Clutching his third (or maybe fourth?) glass of wine, he slips out through a side-door and up a flight of stairs, finding himself in one of the cool, darkened corridors on the first floor. This one leads to Adrian's study, he realizes after a moment, and the door is half open, allowing a warm patch of light to escape. And it isn't that he's rude enough to listen in intentionally, but he can't help overhearing a snatch or two of conversation as he makes his way towards the door.

One of the voices is Adrian's, and the other seems to belong to Martins, the writer, to whom he was briefly introduced earlier. Martins is surprisingly rotund and jovial, not at all the pale and bespectacled intellectual Dan had been expecting, with an apparently inexhaustible supply of stories set in the public houses of London - and a similarly inexhaustible capacity for alcohol, knocking back glass after glass of the punch, a potent, sweet-smelling concoction apparently of his own devising.

"Well," Martins is saying, "As far as I know, the ban was removed in February. But frankly, the general opinion on the continent and at home is that they'll never get anywhere. Their theories are crackpot nonsense. Though of course, there _are_ those in England who believe that a Hitler is just what our country needs." A quiet chuckle. "Some people will say anything for a little notoriety."

"Unfortunate," Adrian says, and there is a tightness in his voice that Dan has heard very rarely. "It's easy, it seems, for people to forget that... views of this type can have a very real effect upon the lives of those being denounced. Even when no-one else takes them seriously."

Dan doesn't have to see Adrian's face to know that he wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that tone, and the lightness with which Martins responds surprises him:

"Of course you're right, dear boy. It's far too easy for politics to become a kind of parlour-game, if you will. I forget that you have - personal connections in Europe. You'll forgive an old man, I hope?"

A soft sigh. "Well, perhaps we should move on to matters of more immediate import?" Then, a touch more loudly: "Dan, you are welcome to join us in here, you know."

Dan feels his cheeks grow warm, though he probably should've expected to be discovered (even when he was a kid, Laurel always beat him at hide and seek.) But he pokes his head around the door and then lets himself into the study, taking a long glug of wine to hide his embarrassment.

"So," says Martins, "You wanted to pick my brains?"

"We could certainly use your expertise, yes." The beginning of a smile tugs at one corner of Adrian's mouth. Dan settles down in his chair, some of his discomfiture subsiding. "I'm familiar with your published work, of course. You talk about one of the major celebrations of the 'Old Religion' occurring around the winter solstice. I was wondering if you could give us any further details. Specifically- " (And here his voice takes on an exaggerated tremble, as though in acknowledgement of the absurdity of the subject, discussed in the warm, lighted comfort of a rich man's study.) "I'm interested in the prevalence of sacrifice as a ritual practice."

"Sacrifice? Well now." Martins' eyebrows shoot up, and he looks immensely pleased. "I must have told you about the nasty business at the Bowl last year. Surely you don't want to hear that gruesome old tale again?" But the glitter in his eyes belies his words, and he leans back, glass in hand, apparently readying himself for a lengthy stint of storytelling.

Dan isn't exactly sure that he's in any state to absorb information right now, his head muzzy with warmth and wine and the lateness of the hour, but he figures that sitting here and listening is at least preferable to going back out into the party. So while Martins talks - about missing local girls and buried bones, and mysterious noises in remote woods at night - he lets the story wash over him, wondering instead of noting details as he should be doing, like a child listening at a campfire on the edge of sleep. As he listens, he finds himself watching Adrian's face, bright-eyed and golden in the lamplight, as though he might absorb some of that alertness just by looking.

After a moment, Adrian catches his eye. His expression is unfathomable, or perhaps meaningless. A lot of things about Adrian are still unfathomable, although they spend a lot of time together these days. (Perhaps too much time, Dan thinks, recalling the pointed remarks Kovacs has started to make whenever he shows up at Dan's rooms and finds Adrian drinking coffee in an armchair, or poking through the workshop with delighted curiosity.) Maybe there's some dark secret, some mysterious past life - or maybe bright cheerfulness and intellectual puzzle-games really are all there is to him. Dan can't decide, and he can't decide whether _that_'s incredibly frustrating, or comforting.

Adrian is still looking at him. Dan blinks and ducks his head. His glass is empty.

"It's as backward a village as you're likely to find anywhere, of course," Martins is saying, "and separating superstition from fact is nigh-impossible. But you _might_ be interested to know that there was some immigration from the area over to your side of the Atlantic in the middle of the last century."

"Really?" Adrian says, and Dan dares to look up again, knowing he'll be looking at Martins.

"Really. Records indicate that a few of the settlers made their homes not too far from you. Arkham, I believe."

"That is interesting. Don't you think so, Dan?" Adrian is looking at him again, but this time there is the barest hint of a smile playing about his lips.

"Well... it should certainly give us something to look into."

"And something's always better than nothing, eh?" Martins leans forward, elbows on the desk, setting down his glass on the polished wood. "But tell me, Mr. Dreiberg. Adrian tells me you're a man of science, not a historian. What got you interested in the occult?"

Dan shrugs. "I don't know. It's just interesting, hearing about all these lost worlds," he offers.

Martins nods expectantly. Clearly that isn't going to suffice. Dan sighs inwardly. He isn't really sure that his conversational skills are up to explaining this, tonight.

"It's not so different, really, is it?" he says. "Those things that people discovered hundreds of years ago weren't _magic_, they just had a different way of... imagining things, I guess. Everything I find out, it just shows how little we know about everything, even everything that's happened on this one tiny little planet. It's like there's this whole, this sea of infinity out there, and I might just get to explore one little part of it in the time that I'm here. It's amazing."

He starts feeling like a fool before he's even finished talking, but Martins is smiling. "I see you have a little of the poet in you as well," he says.

Dan blinks. The thought has never seemed all that poetic to him, just true.

Across the table, Adrian is regarding him intently, with something that is not quite amusement. It's something different, something to which Dan cannot quite put a name. Unfathomable, again.

"Come on," Martins says, getting to his feet. He claps Dan heartily on the back. "I can see that both of you gentlemen are in need of a drink."

Dan manages a smile. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I think I am."

* * *

Martins' punch is as strong as it is sweet, a bitter tang of green tea in the aftertaste. Dan can't remember whether he's been sipping it slowly, or whether his glass just keeps getting topped up, but between the punch and the endlessly moving throng of people, the night is soon beginning to swirl and to soften around the edges. He watches Adrian make a circuit of the room, nodding and smiling at all the appropriate people at all the appropriate intervals, and then another. Then he decides that he needs to sit down.

The library will probably be deserted, he thinks, and it's one of the few rooms in Adrian's home that he can probably find his way to drunk. And he manages it easily enough, one hand tightly clutching his glass, the other steadying him along the corridor wall. Not that it's entirely necessary - he thinks - but better safe than in an undignified heap on the floor.

The door is closed, and the library mostly in darkness. There's just one single lamp burning at the far end of the room. Dan makes his way towards it cautiously, not quite sure why he's holding his breath.

It's Laurel. She's standing in the shadows, near the back wall, and she whirls around to face him when she hears his footsteps, her guilty expression giving way first to relief, and then to something less certain, more troubled. The beads on her dress make a noise like running water.

"Dan," she says, after a second. "Are you- how are you?"

Dan swallows. "Good, thanks. I'm good." Gingerly, he places his glass down on the edge of the table. It wobbles a little.

When he looks back up, Laurel's smiling. "If I didn't know better," she says, mock-accusingly, "I'd say you'd been engaging in illicit drinking." But the smile is too sweet for her face, with none of the wickedness that mean's she's really happy, and the laughter in her voice sounds forced.

"Perish the thought," Dan says, spreading his hands in feigned surprise and not meeting her eyes. He looks at the wall instead. There's a slab of stone mounted there - a healing stele, he remembers, one of the more valuable historical pieces Adrian picked up in Egypt. It's usually covered by a glass case. Right now, though, the case is lying in the middle of the table, its fasteners unpicked by Laurel's deft fingers.

Dan raises his eyebrows, the corner of his mouth twitching. "Looks like you've been engaged in some illicit activities of your very own."

Shrugging, Laurel turns back to the stele. "What's the point in just looking at things? I wanted to touch it. Think about it - it's been buried under the ground for thousands of years, no-one to look at it. Well, no-one _alive_, anyway." She looks back over her shoulder with a grin, a sharp flash of white teeth. "D'you think there were mummies?" And for a second she isn't a soon-to-be-married woman any longer; she's the bright-eyed imp he met when he was twelve years old, and who he never could resist following into any kind of trouble, no matter how many cross words Kovacs had for him, or how many messes they ended up in.

His smile fades abruptly. "I guess so," he says, sagging back against the edge of the table. "Why do you ask? I mean, we aren't kids playing at being explorers any more."

Laurel sighs. "Dan," she says. She doesn't say anything else for a moment, just comes to perch beside him on the table, skirt fluttering around her knees as she crosses her legs. "Look. That doesn't mean we can't be- oh, Jesus."

She plucks her cigarette holder out from behind her ear (never quite the lady, even now) and jams it between her lips, a gesture that, Dan knows, means she's trying to avoid saying something she'll regret. He waits while she scrabbles in her purse for a cigarette to put in it, lights it, and takes a long drag, the smoke twisting towards the high ceiling. Dan sees it and is reminded of ectoplasm, ghosts and echoes and might-have-beens. The familiar ache is dull in his chest. Maybe it's the drink.

A beat, and then Laurel is looking directly at him, a look that forces him to meet her eyes.

"I love Jon," she says.

And a month ago that would've been too much for Dan, he'd have made his excuses and left, but now he just stares at her dumbly.

"I can't help that. And if I could- well." She shakes her head. "If I could, I wouldn't change it, because he loves me, and I'm _happy_. I know people think he's strange - crazy, maybe - and I couldn't give a damn. That has to mean something."

"...I suppose it does."

"Ah, Christ. Sorry. I'm meant to be making you feel better, and- look. I don't want this to stop us being friends. Dan, you're the big brother I always wished I had. And I want the same for you. Someone who makes you happy. Someone who loves you. You deserve that."

Dan blinks, waving a hand to get the smoke out of his eyes. After a second, he gives her a small smile. "Uh, thanks, I think."

"You'll find her. I know you will." She bites her lip. "You know, as a matter of fact, I was starting to think that maybe you had. I know we haven't seen much of each other lately, but you've looked kind of... brighter than usual, most of the time. Except for tonight." A sly, sideways glance. "Nothing I should know about?"

"Huh? Oh, no." He laughs. "I haven't even had time to think about meeting anyone, lately. Adrian and I have been doing some, ah, some research. It's interesting. That's all."

At the mention of their host's name, Laurel cocks an eyebrow. "You oughta keep an eye on that one." She nudges him with her elbow. "You know what I think?"

"What do you think?"

"Guy that rich, not exactly bad looking, not even a sniff of a girlfriend? And all this ancient history stuff..." She waves her hand, indicating the interior of the library. "Well, you know what they say about the Greeks."

Dan feels a faint twisting in the pit of his stomach. For some reason, he isn't sure he wants to hear what Laurel is going to say next. It feels too much like standing at the edge of something.

"They say a lot of things about the Greeks," he says. "Half of them are probably baloney."

"Okay, okay." Laurel shrugs, apparently happy to drop the subject for the sake of peace. "Far be it from me to speak ill of the guy providing the liquor. He's less insufferable than Gardner, anyway."

Figuring that that's about the best he can hope for, Dan nods. Laurel hops down from the table, smiling.

"Well, I'm gonna cut out," she says. "It's getting a little late."

"You want me to call you a cab?"

"No need." She winks at him, twirling a car key on the tip of her finger. "I'm sneaking out the door while Mother's busy hunting for a man half her age to take advantage of. By the time she gets home, she'll be too far gone to notice I'm not there."

"Okay then." Dan pauses, then reaches across and squeezes her hand. "Drive careful, okay?"

"Sure. I'll see you. Don't be a stranger."

And then she's gone, heels clicking on the polished floor. Dan drains his glass in a single gulp.

He isn't sure how long after that it is until he finds his way back to the party, or how long it is after _that_ that he ends up sprawled in an armchair with his head tipped back, occasionally opening his eyes to check whether or not the ceiling has stopped spinning yet. He's been there for a few minutes, or maybe an hour, when he feels a hand on his shoulder, and a solid presence that tells him someone is sitting on the arm of his chair.

"How are you feeling?" Adrian's voice asks him.

Dan opens his eyes and straightens his neck, and his glasses slide down off his nose. Adrian catches them, folds them up, and tucks them into his jacket pocket. Dan blinks.

"I'm okay," he manages, at length. "Just...blurry. And tired. Mostly blurry."

But even through the blur, and without his glasses, he can tell that the crowd is beginning to thin out. That's good. Perhaps soon he'll feel like he can breathe easily again.

Adrian gives his shoulder a comforting pat. "Don't feel bad," he says. "Martins tends to forget that not all of us share his iron constitution. You certainly aren't at fault."

"I...feel like kind of an idiot anyway," Dan admits, which is true, though it possibly has less to do with the punch than Adrian thinks. "I should probably be going." He takes a deep breath, preparing himself for the Herculean task of standing up, and trying not to wonder how in hell he's going to find his way home.

"Not at all." Adrian's thumb brushes across his shoulder once, the same movement he uses when stroking his cat. Dan looks at it. "I took the liberty of having a guest room made up for you. I hope you'll oblige me? I'd rest easier knowing you were here."

Relief sinks over Dan like a heavy blanket, and he sags back in the armchair. Then he realises that his head is resting against Adrian's side, and that he probably ought to move it.

Adrian's warm. He smells clean. Dan doesn't move.

"'M glad I know you," he hears his own voice saying. "You're kind." And as he says it, he realizes it's true. He is glad. It doesn't matter if Laurel laughs at him.

"So am I," Adrian tells him, after a short pause. "And thank you."

Dan looks up, and he's smiling. This time, Dan decides, it isn't meaningless. There's something in the smile. He doesn't know what. Something.


	7. Chapter 7

Adrian has been expecting at least one incapacitated guest tonight, having previous experience of Martins' punch and its effects upon the uninitiated. He hadn't actually expected Dan to be the casualty - young Miss Juspeczyk seemed a more likely candidate, given the rate at which she was knocking them back - but perhaps Dan's constitution is a little more vulnerable than he'd realized.

Or perhaps Dan has been drinking more than he'd noticed. After all, he's been busy playing host most of the evening, and even he misses things, from time to time.

Adrian wonders idly why that might be. He is careful to keep his wondering idle.

Dan's head lolls against his shoulder as they make their way down the corridor. Dan stumbles, corrects himself, and mumbles something half-formed that is probably meant to be an apology, embarrassment in his vague smile. His eyelids flicker, slow and irregular as a fading bulb, heavy with drink. But the look beneath them is a wide-open look, unguarded and expectant. Questioning, perhaps.

With an effort, Adrian meets the look, summoning a cheery smile to put off its questions. He pats Dan's shoulder.

"Here's your room," he says. "My staff will see out the rest of the guests. Let me give you a hand."

A shy duck of Dan's head as they slip into the guest room, but he frowns and sets to work on his bowtie, apparently determined to prove that he's not all _that_impaired. And to his credit, he does manage to get it off without fumbling, the delicate concentration with which he works on his mechanical constructs transferred into the ritual of undressing. He copes with his jacket and shoes, too, but then he's sinking back onto the bed, and asleep almost as soon as his head lands on the pillow, the embarrassed look not quite gone from his face.

Nor are his glasses. Adrian leans in to pluck them off and set them down on the nightstand, and tries not to notice the way Dan's lashes tremble at the brush of his fingers, the way his nose wrinkles up and then his whole face relaxes, reassured. Like all of his expressions, it's guileless, that of a man without secrets or uncertainties.

They've been working together for some time, now, and he wouldn't hesitate to call Dan a friend, but sometimes Adrian still feels that they inhabit entirely different worlds, looking at one another across a narrow but impassable gulf, communicating in different languages, with just the occasional flash of perfect understanding.

Of course, it is often better not to be perfectly understood. Adrian knows this. He pushes his hands deep into his pockets.

It's been a busy evening, what with Martins' fondness for lengthy conversation, and the inevitable dozens of other attendees scrambling for a minute of Adrian's attention. But he's kept a cautious eye on Dan, when he's been able, as he would keep an eye on any more-than-passing acquaintance. So it isn't as though he hasn't noticed the frequency with which Dan has been looking at him (and then, always, down into his glass, abashed). He suspects that another little scrap of understanding may be coming into being in Dan's mind. He isn't sure whether he ought to welcome it.

Finding out would be easy enough. He could just wait for Dan to wake up, and coax out the answer with gentle hints and patience, a careless touch at the right moment and a watchful eye for blushes.

He closes the door carefully behind him as he leaves.

The corridor is quiet, the spiralling-up of muffled noises from the ground floor - the chatter of departing guests, the scrape and shudder of the heavy front door, the footsteps of his staff on the wooden floor as they begin the cleanup effort - lending a dreamlike quality to the night. Scraps of reality, drifting up like curls of smoke, just as ephemeral and no more substantial. There are shadows in every corner. Adrian could sleep - he's tired, dead tired, and after this evening sleep holds the appearance of a welcome respite - but he knows instinctively that if he closes his eyes tonight he will hear the voices.

Instead, he lights the lamp in his study, pulling down _Unaussprechlichen Kulten_ and _The Witch-Cult in Western Europe_from the middle shelf. They should furnish enough material for him to make a decent start, even with alcohol and exhaustion tugging at the edges of his waking mind. Tugging hard enough that he casts a foolish little glance up at the figurine in the left-hand corner before settling down to his books.

Perfectly still, of course. If he were to allow his mind to wander, he might fancy that it's _too_still, a thing caught and frozen in the middle of an illicit act. As though it's waiting for him to look away.

Goodness. The directions in which his mind is wandering are certainly testament to the lateness of the hour. That, or the power of Martins' stories (or perhaps his punch) upon the imagination.

Adrian smiles tightly, and fixes the figurine with a glare of mock-severity. It gleams blankly back in the lamplight, betraying nothing.

* * *

When he next looks up, the morning is well settled in, a bright strip of day between the curtains turning the lamplight treacly and unpleasant. Adrian has half a notebook's worth of scribblings on the desk in front of him, and a solidly-forming idea of what his next course of action needs to be. Not that anybody (except Dan, and maybe Kovacs) would be able to work that out from looking at his notes - but he'll have time to organize them later. Coffee first.

Adrian stands, stretches, and pulls open the curtains on cold sunshine, an autumn morning so bright and clear its surface seems about to crack. He's about to turn around and call down for breakfast when there's a pained groan from behind him, and Dan's voice says, "Now, that was cruel and unusual."

Dan is standing in the doorway, barefoot and squinting in the light. His spectacles are crooked.

A corner of his mouth twitching, Adrian motions him towards the spare chair, and resists the impulse to reach over and set Dan's glasses straight. "So glad you could join me, Mr. Dreiberg. And how does it feel to be back in the land of the living?" He closes the notebook.

The squint turns into a rueful smile. "I'll let you know when I get there."

"Be sure that you do. Breakfast?" Dan makes a face. "Perhaps not. Tea, then? I have some green varieties that can be quite soothing, taken in moderation."

"Thanks." Dan takes off his glasses, and rubs at his eyes with the back of his hand. "And could you do me a favor? Don't let me drink that much ever again. I feel as though my brain's trying to escape through my eye-sockets."

"I'll do my utmost," Adrian reassures him. "What else are friends for?"

At that, Dan's smile vanishes. He bites his lip. "Uh, yeah," he says. "About last night. If I- I hope I didn't give the impression that- well, if I said anything inappropriate, I'm sorry. That's all."

Adrian doesn't blink. He raises an eyebrow, and ignores the fact that he can suddenly feel the thud of his pulse, hard and rapid behind his eyes. It's the result of a late night and too many hours spent poring over cramped blackletter, nothing more. "Inappropriate? No, I don't think so. Honestly, Dan, I can't imagine you being inappropriate if you tried."

Dan's face is so relieved that Adrian decides (with something akin to disappointment - though it's better that his suspicions stay unconfirmed, easier for both of them) that it's probably safe to make light of the situation.

"You _did_say that you were glad you knew me. I hope you don't intend to retract the statement?"

"Of course not! I just, I- well." Dan flushes and looks down, fiddling with his glasses, more discomposed than Adrian expected. "I heard- I thought maybe you- maybe I- oh, damn." He shoves his glasses back on, and stands up. "Look, I should go home. You've done enough for me already."

"If that's what you prefer."

Maintaining a neutral, unsurprised expression is an underrated skill, but at this moment, it's one Adrian is very glad he has. He keeps it up as the study door closes, as Dan's footsteps head towards the landing, then back to the guest room to retrieve his shoes, and finally downstairs and outside.

When the front door has closed, he calls down to the kitchen.

"Coffee please. No, just the one."

* * *

"I'm scared."

Adrian blinks, and looks up from the grimoire on his desk. He's been absorbed in it since around lunchtime, having sat down with the intention of forcing himself to read, to take his mind off this... situation with Dan, whatever it might be. The work, as always, took over before long, the voices whispering softly in the back of his mind as he read. Today, their constant presence has been, if not exactly a comforting diversion, at least less unwelcome than usual.

But now Dan is standing in the entrance to his study again, steadying himself with one hand against the doorframe. He has at least changed his clothes since this morning, Adrian notes, though he hasn't taken off his overcoat, and his glasses are askew once more and his cheeks reddened by the cold. It's getting dark outside. Adrian turns up the lamp.

"Have you been drinking?" he asks.

"Yeah. And I'm still scared."

Well. Not as awkward as he's been expecting. He has misread the situation, perhaps; the nature of their work is what has been preying upon Dan's mind all along. At least this particular worry should be easy enough to allay.

"Dan," he says, sighing deeply. "I know that we're... in somewhat uncharted waters, with regards to our research. We can't know its consequences, and that's enough to make any rational man uneasy. But_ think_. We could be about to discover something momentous - something that could alter the human conception of life, of the universe. Could you really bear not to know? Surely it's worth getting past a little trepidation?"

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"Oh?" Adrian frowns, and something turns over in the pit of his stomach, giving him a second's pause before he speaks again. "Then what _are_you afraid of?"

Dan doesn't say anything for a moment. He takes off his glasses, puts them back on again (mercifully straight, this time). Then he crosses the room, moving behind the desk and leaning against it, so that he's looking down at Adrian. Adrian hears him swallow.

"I'm afraid of what I'm about to do," he says.

Adrian doesn't move, but there is something racing in his ears, a sound that is not the voices. "I believe… my advice would remain the same," he says, softly.

His voice doesn't falter. That's something. But he waits for Dan to kiss him first.

* * *

Honestly, Dan hadn't gone to the Miskatonic Club _intending_to start drinking again. His head had been throbbing since he woke up, his thoughts in a whirl, and he hardly even knew what he was thinking anymore. He'd walked home with shoulders hunched, hands shoved deep into his pockets and eyes half-closed against the cold morning air, and tried to get some more sleep, too dazed to even contemplate looking at his workshop at that moment in time. But he couldn't rest, either, the discomfort like an itch deep in his bones and the back of his skull. He couldn't think straight, and he couldn't not think. He tried tinkering, but couldn't concentrate, tried sitting down to read, but couldn't keep still, stood up and paced around his rooms, but that only made the space seem tiny and Dan feel trapped, like something in a cage, unable quite to stretch out its wings.

By mid-afternoon, he thought he might shake out of his skin with restlessness, his brain endlessly re-running the fuzzy end of the previous night, and this morning's conversation, turning them over in dissatisfaction again and again. He couldn't even quite figure out why he felt so bad about it; he knew the answer was there, but found himself circling away from it every time. And it wasn't as though he could ask anybody else. He wouldn't even know how to broach the subject with Kovacs or Laurel, his oldest friends, and Adrian - usually the easiest to talk to - was out of the question. Everything just felt wrong.

But throughout his life, there had been one person Dan had always known to be _right_, whatever happened.

He looked at the clock. Yeah, now should be about the right time.

Sure enough, he found Mason in the upstairs room of the Miskatonic Club, half-slumped in an armchair with an untouched cup of coffee cooling in front of him. He didn't look much more alert than Dan felt, and Dan couldn't help smiling inwardly; while Mason didn't show his face at Adrian's soiree last night (not exactly the place for an officer of the law to be seen), he's always been as partial as the next man to a tumbler of good whisky in private. But he mustered a smile and a hearty greeting, like always, when Dan settled down in the armchair opposite him.

Mason obviously wasn't in one of his reminiscing moods today, and they'd never needed to chat about nothing for the sake of politeness, so for a while they just sat there in companionable near-silence. It wasn't awkward, it never was, but today Dan knew that his anxiety must be visible. His eyes kept darting around the room, words dying half-formed before they reached his throat. Finally, Mason's gaze narrowed across the table, sharp but not unkind.

"Let's hear it, then, Danny boy," he said. "What's bothering you?"

He blinked, startled, even though this was obviously coming. But Mason's bluntness forced it out of him; easier to edge around to the truth, inch by painful inch, than to deny and demur and see the disappointment in Mason's eyes. Dan took a deep breath, then inclined his head fractionally in the direction of the bar. Gardner's heavyset companion was there, balanced atop his usual corner stool and glowering at something intangible in the air before him, or maybe just at the world in general. They weren't talking.

"You and Gardner," Dan began, slowly. "You don't get along."

Mason shrugged and nodded.

"Why is that, really? I mean..."

"Look." Mason cut him off, sighing. "I don't hate the guy. He's served his country, and he's shown more bravery-or more stupidity, depending on who you ask-in the line of duty than most. I'd be glad to have him on my side in a fight."

"But?"

"But he's a goddamn hypocrite. He'd gladly see every black, Jew and Catholic in the country shipped out of here tomorrow, men, women and children. Thinks they got no right to be here." Dan thought he'd managed to suppress his flinch at that, but the furrow between Mason's eyebrows deepened, telling him otherwise. "But there's a German fascist drinking in his club right now."

"The guy with the moustache?"

"Müller. That's his name." Mason's mouth twisted in distaste. "And he sure as hell isn't a Miskatonic man. I've seen him a couple of times, when we've raided speakeasies downtown, working as what they call security. Never thrown a punch at a guy who wasn't causing trouble, but when they do- well, I've seen him put a man's head through a table and laugh while he did it. Only time I ever _have_seen him look happy, as a matter of fact. Gardner's got no claim to the moral high-ground."

"I get it." Dan paused, drew breath slowly before continuing, one eye still on Gardner and the scowling giant in the corner. "What you said to him before. Well, it was a while ago now. About not being perfect himself."

Mason looked at him sideways. "This about your new friend? Veidt?"

Dan blinked back, unable to hide his startlement. "How did you guess?"

"I think I know where you're going with this. And listen. I have to uphold the law as best I can. But frankly, I tend to think that what a man does in private is his own damn business, and given any choice in the matter, I'd rather not know about it. I wouldn't _trust_the guy myself, but that isn't why."

"Then why?" Dan asked, frowning.

Mason gulped down the last of his coffee, and set down his cup. "These... occult ideas that you two have been researching. Of course, you'd know more about it than I do, but in my experience? When a poor man takes an interest in that sort of thing, it's because he thinks it's going to bring him money. When a rich man takes an interest, it's because he thinks it's going to bring him power. And a power-hungry man's a danger to everybody, no matter what he believes in."

This time, it was Dan's turn to sigh, the familiar disappointment making its way up from his gut. "I'm not a poor man," he pointed out. "Do you think _I'm _power-hungry?" Of course not; he already knew the answer. A gullible kid in a fantasy world, just waiting to be taken advantage of by anybody with half a brain. That's what everybody thought he was.

"Of course not," Mason said. "How long have I known you, huh? Anyway, why'd you want the opinion of an old man like me? You're the up-and-coming young scientist around here."

Dan tried to smile. Mason was looking at him intently, but his eyes were kind. "Besides," he went on, after a second, "I guess you know your friends better than I do, too."

"Yeah," Dan said, nodding, allowing a hint of friendly amusement to creep into his tone. This could've gone worse, after all, he knew. "Yeah, I guess I do."

"Good man." Mason settled back into his armchair, apparently satisfied with the outcome of the conversation. After a moment, Dan did the same.

* * *

Even now that he's here, half-dressed beneath Adrian's bedcovers, with Adrian's hand soft on his side, Dan doesn't quite know what he thinks he's doing. Can't quite believe how he got here, either. There's an ache throbbing low in his right temple, and he knows it won't fade until he actually sleeps, but he can ignore it for now, busy wondering at himself, and at this.

Adrian's hand stills, and he cracks an eyelid. The half-amused, questioning look on Adrian's face is exactly the one he would've expected, and that's reassuring, somehow; some things don't change.

"Something on your mind?"

Dan shakes his head. That's met with a sceptically-raised eyebrow (of course), and so he blinks his eyes wider and props himself up on his elbow, groaning.

"Well," he says. "Lots. Nothing in particular. My head's a little…" He trails off, wiggling his fingers helplessly.

Adrian smiles. "I think I understand. I must admit, you did take _me_by surprise a little. Not that I'm complaining, you understand."

Dan smiles, weakly, and wonders how he's supposed to answer. He doesn't regret what's happening—not at the moment, anyway—and right now he wouldn't move for the world, but there is still a hot fizz of excitement-nearing-panic in his chest when he thinks about his earlier boldness, and he isn't ready to joke about it, not yet. Adrian, he's pretty sure, has done this kind of thing before, so it's different for him. He knows how you're supposed to act.

But Adrian's expression turns sympathetic, sparing Dan any more agonizing. "I'm sorry," he says. "I forget that this is all new to you." He blinks, slowly. His voice is very quiet. "But I wasn't born a dissolute, you know. I found it hard to get used to the idea of loving men, at first, too."

_Loving_, he says, and the word slung past so casually makes Dan shudder a little without being entirely sure why. But Adrian's voice is steady and gentle, like his touch; something to hold onto, something to trust. And even if he can't really understand how it feels for Dan—what it's like for anyone to walk through the world without his shiny outer coating of self-confidence—he's trying, which means he cares, which means that at least Dan isn't a total fool. So he nods, and tries to look suitably comforted.

Adrian looks at him seriously. "It isn't always easy," he goes on, after a moment. "You're a very honest person, Dan. Hiding the truth, every day, about who you are, what you're doing—it might be hard on you, I think."

Now, it's Dan's turn to raise an eyebrow. "You think that didn't occur to me?"

Maybe it's his imagination, but in the half-light, he thinks that he sees a faint flush appear high on Adrian's cheeks. "Of course not," he says. "I—simply wouldn't want you to feel any obligation. To—this." He gestures briefly, at the two of them, lying close together, at his left arm still draped around Dan's waist, and is that half a breath's hesitation in his voice? Surely not. Dan's never known him to be anything other than perfectly sure of getting what he wants. _If_this is what he wants.

Adrian's gaze drops, and Dan feels a surge of guilt, unprompted, for that shadow of a doubt, as though Adrian could read his mind. But he isn't even looking at Dan. "I wouldn't want you to suffer on my account. That's all," he murmurs, and Dan can't help but sigh and inch closer to him.

"This wasn't just a drunken whim, you know," he says. "I've known for a while, really, I think. Known that I wanted…" He swallows. "You. And it's—it's worth it, you know?" The question falters lamely towards its end, and Dan curses his shyness and his self-doubt, and all the things that make articulate speech desert him when he needs it most. _You make me feel I can be more than people expect,_ he wants to say, _you make me see the possibility in everything_, but instead he just bites his lip and looks away, feeling stupid.

A cool hand brushes his cheek, turning his face back to Adrian. He's smiling again.

"Yes, it is," is all that he says, and then he leans forward and kisses Dan on the lips, very softly.

* * *

Dan wakes up once that night, sometime deep in the small hours. They're still lying close together. Adrian is still wearing all of his clothes, and his arm is still around Dan. His breathing is deep and even. The smile has dropped off his face.

Dan reaches down for Adrian's free hand, and holds it between both of his own.


End file.
